NOW to protest at Marco Rubio’s Tampa office before conference begins

As we featured in the current issue of CL, the National Organization for Women is coming to Tampa this weekend for its annual national conference.

But right before the activities take place at the Embassy Suites hotel on Fowler Avenue, some NOW activists plan to picket Florida GOP U.S. Senator Marco Rubio's Tampa District offices, located near the conference on Spectrum Boulevard.

Activists are calling the protest to stop "slash-onomics" as Congress gets around to voting on the 2012 budget. Although the Paul Ryan-led House budget was voted down by the Democratic-led U.S. Senate last month, NOW activists still want to highlight the fact that it would dismantle the Medicare program, make Medicaid a block-grant program with money going directly to the states, and take away money from programs that they say disproportionately serve and employ women, such as Head Start and Pell Grants.

This article appears in Jun 16-22, 2011.