Peace activists rallied in downtown Des Moines on Monday and tried to stage sit-ins at the offices of Congressman Leonard Boswell and Senator Chuck Grassley. Police ticketed about a dozen people and at least four demonstrators were arrested for refusing to leave the offices.
Senator Grassley says the activists want to see the U.S. pull its troops out of Iraq. “We welcome all the opinions that we can gather because that’s the way representative government is supposed to work,” Grassley says. “They have given me their opinions several times on this issue so I didn’t see yesterday as any different than their just continuing wanting to bring attention to their position.”
Grassley says his office in Des Moines is used primarily for case work and the sit-in was disruptive. “Case work is something where the privacy laws protect people coming in so that the whole public doesn’t know their business,” he says. “First off, there’s not a lot of room in the office and you can’t have people sitting around listening in on the conversations that my staff has with people that have case work with the federal government.”
Both Grassley and Boswell were in Washington D.C. during the incident. Boswell reportedly talked with a representative of the group on the phone.