Member of Congress have always used visual displays to bolster their speeches on the floor. They can reiterate key points in their speeches and make for good photo opportunities. In 2015, Senator James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, brought a snowball to the house floor with a poster of his daughter in an igloo in his front yard to illustrate that global warming does not exist.
Senator Mike Lee took it to a whole new level today in his speech against the Green New Deal.
One by one Lee flipped through large-sized color prints of Luke Skywalker riding a TaunTaun, Aquaman riding a seahorse, and Ronald Reagan riding a velociraptor while firing a machine gun to demonstrate the degree of seriousness with which he is giving to the Green New Deal.
Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) is on the Senate floor right now discussing @AOC and @SenMarkey ‘s Green New Deal.
These are not photoshopped. pic.twitter.com/j8YWahtR1j
— Waleed Shahid (@_waleedshahid) March 26, 2019
“The solution to climate change is not this un-serious resolution that we’re considering this week in the Senate, but rather the serious business of human flourishing,” Lee said, while revealing his last poster, a portrait of six babies in diapers, according to CNN . “The solution to so many of our problems, at all times and in all places, is to fall in love, get married and have some kids.”
Lee argued that increasing the U.S. population is the way to solve climate because more babies mean more adults that will be equipped to handle long-term, large-scale problems.
As for the bizarre and cartoonish posters?
Lee argued that if the policy passed, Alaskan residents would need to travel on tauntauns, the mythical creatures from Star Wars .
Tourists visiting Hawaii would require a fleet of 20-foot seahorses which is Aquaman’s preferred means of travel.
And former President Ronald Reagan riding a velociraptor while firing a machine gun has “as much to do with overcoming communism in 20th Century as the Green New Deal has to do with overcoming climate change in the 21st,” Lee said.
Freshman Representative Alexandria Oscasio Cortez, along with Senator Ed Markey, introduced the bill Senator Lee was lambasting.
Cortez responded on Twitter.
GOP Senators are using their Congressional allowances to print Aquaman posters for themselves to argue that a #GreenNewDeal saving our nation from climate change is a ‘waste of money’ ? https://t.co/iMNY0dJmCy
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 26, 2019
In a vote this afternoon, the Senate failed to pass the resolution to advance the bill. Democrats claimed Republicans rushed the vote before the bill could be properly discussed in an effort to score political points in the upcoming presidential election, according to CBS .
The “Green New Deal” includes plans to drastically reduce greenhouse gases and move the nation towards 100 percent renewable energy. The proposed resolution also calls for universal health care and investment in infrastructure, according to CNN .
It is unclear how the resolution will proceed after today’s vote.
