Growing number of Democratic members of Congress will boycott Trump's inauguration

Impact

A growing number of Democratic lawmakers have announced plans to boycott President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration — one of them, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., saying she has no plans to celebrate someone who campaigned on a platform of "racism, sexism, xenophobia and bigotry."

"Donald Trump has proven that his administration will normalize the most extreme fringes of the Republican Party," Lee said in a letter, laying out the parts of Trump's campaign she found offensive. "On Inauguration Day, I will not be celebrating, I will be organizing and preparing for resistance."

Lawmakers of both parties often go to the inauguration, even if their party did not win the White House.

Even Hillary Clinton will be in attendance at the U.S. Capitol when Trump is sworn in, joining former presidents and first ladies in celebrating a peaceful transition of power.

But a handful of Democratic members of Congress say that while they accept Trump will be president, they do not feel the need to celebrate his swearing in, saying they disagree with both his policies and the tone with which he ran his campaign.

On Tuesday, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat and immigration advocate, announced his plans to skip Trump's inauguration.

"I went to George Bush's inauguration, and I work with Republicans all the time," Gutierrez said in a speech on the House floor. "But this is different. I never thought George Bush was trying to make my own country hostile toward me, personally. To my wife. To my daughters."

Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., wrote in a Jan. 7 Facebook post that he will sit out Trump's inauguration, opting instead to spend Inauguration Day back in his district "doing positive things."

"I will do everything I can to limit the damage and the duration of this chapter, and I believe we can get through it," Huffman wrote. "But I will not sit passively and politely applaud as it begins."