- GOP lawmakers who opposed the creation of a federal holiday for Juneteenth closed their offices Friday anyway, BuzzFeed News reported.
- In total, 14 members of Congress opposed the new holiday, and eight of them appeared to close their office.
- The bill unanimously passed the Senate and was signed by President Biden on Thursday.
Eight GOP members of Congress who voted against the bill that established Juneteenth as a federal holiday appeared to close their offices on Friday anyway, BuzzFeed News reported.
As Insider previously reported, 14 House Republicans — Reps. Andrew Clyde, Ronny Jackson, Doug LaMalfa, Tom McClintock, Ralph Norman, Mike Rogers, Matt Rosendale, Andy Biggs, Mo Brooks, Scott DesJarlais, Tom Tiffany, Thomas Massie, Paul Gosar, and Chip Roy — earlier this week voted against making June 19, known as Juneteenth, a federal holiday.
A reporter for BuzzFeed News went to the Capitol and attempted to go into the offices of the lawmakers who voted against the bill.
According to the BuzzFeed report, the offices of Reps. Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, Mo Brooks, Mike Rogers, Tom McClintock, Ralph Norman, Andrew Clyde, and Ronny Jackson all appeared to have been closed when a reporter attempted to visit in person.
The six other lawmakers who opposed the bill — Reps. Thomas Massie, Matt Rosendale, Scott DesJarlais, Doug LaMalfa, Chip Roy, and Tom Tiffany — all had at least one person working in their congressional office on Friday, according to the report.
Juneteenth acknowledges the end of slavery in the US and specifically celebrates June 19, 1865, when soldiers from the Union traveled to Galveston Bay, Texas, and announced the region's enslaved African American population were emancipated, Insider previously noted.
While Juneteenth officially falls on June 19, the new federal holiday was celebrated on Friday since the official date falls on Saturday in 2021.
The bill to create the holiday unanimously passed the Senate on Tuesday, as Insider previously reported. President Joe Biden signed the legislation into law on Thursday.
"Juneteenth marks both the long, hard night of slavery and subjugation and a promise of a brighter morning to come," Biden said when he signed the bill Thursday. "This is a day of — in my view — profound weight and profound power. A day in which we remember the moral stain, the terrible toll that slavery took on the country and continues to take."