Members of the state’s congressional delegation are trying to make a political statement with the guests they are taking to President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, highlighting how cuts to government programs and jobs are impacting the people of Massachusetts.
Speaking earlier in the day at a news conference with the Democratic Women’s Caucus outside the Capitol, U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark introduced Boston meteorologist Sarah Wroblewski as her guest. Wroblewski’s 4-year-old son Declan has been fighting a rare form of brain cancer.
Clark says he is alive thanks to a clinical trial funded by the National Institutes of Health — a target of Trump funding cuts.
“We all are about cutting waste and making our government work more efficiently for people. We just disagree that the waste here are kids who have been diagnosed with cancer,” Clark said.
At the news conference, Wroblewski said that her trip to Washington was not about politics. “It’s about families who are literally holding their breath, hoping tomorrow brings the breakthrough that will save their child’s life. Cutting NIH funding will cost those families, cost my family precious hope and it will certainly cost children their lives,” she said.
Wroblewski says any interruption to ongoing research will have devastating consequences for patients.
“I never imagined that I would be asked to come here to Washington to beg our government to do right by our kids,” she said. “I am here on behalf of all the parents right now, who are sitting in hospital rooms with their children when it comes to finding less toxic treatments and lifesaving cures for kids battling cancer. We don’t have a single day to spare.”
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Rep. Richard Neal all invited former federal workers who were fired by the Trump administration.
Warren’s guest is Wellesley’s Doug Kowalewski, a former National Science Foundation employee, whose job was cut as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to slash the size of the federal government.
Pressley wrote in a statement her distinguished guest is Claire Bergstresser. The Everett constituent — a longtime public servant, AFGE union member and wheelchair user — has worked for the last several years as a Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity worker within the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to Pressley.
“Bergstresser is motivated by her belief in the fundamental right to accessible, fair housing and her drive as a person with a disability to stand up for others,” Pressley said in a statement. “On February 14th, Claire was terminated from her service at HUD without severance, dignity, or cause.”
Neal is bringing Michael Slater, a U.S. Army veteran who lost his job at the Springfield Veteran Center as a result of federal layoffs across the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in mid-February.
Other members of the delegation are looking to highlight diminished governmental services. U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss is bringing Dr. Atul Gawande, the former assistant administrator for global health at USAID. Reps. Lori Trahan and Jim McGovern invited constituents who they say rely on government programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
U.S. Sen. Ed Markey’s guest is Chrissy Lynch, the president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, which represents more than 800 local unions representing nearly half a million union members across Massachusetts. “The AFL-CIO has long represented workers across the Commonwealth and the country in fighting back when billionaires like Trump and Musk try to push them down,” he wrote in a statement.
U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton told POLITICO that he was not bringing anyone, saying that he didn’t want to “subject anyone to that misery.”
