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The top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is skipping President Trump’s speech to Congress on Tuesday night.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), who represents a large number of government employees and federal contractors, said he’ll boycott the address “in solidarity” with those workers who have been laid off as part of the federal firing blitz that’s been a leading feature of Trump’s return to office.

But that was just the start.

Connolly said his protest is also designed to show support for other groups of people — some domestic, some overseas — who are in line to be harmed directly by Trump’s policy agenda.

The list includes military veterans who have been fired by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency; the “children across the world who will starve” as a result of Trump’s decision to gut the U.S. Agency for International Development; the inspectors general across the agencies who have been laid off; the millions of Americans who could lose their health care if the Republicans’ Medicaid cuts take effect; the Ukrainians “who have watched in horror as an American president turns his back on their fight for freedom and democracy;” the police officers who were attacked by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, then saw the president pardon even the most violent felons.

“And in solidarity with the American people who deserve a government that serves them, not the whims of billionaires,” he concluded, “I will not attend Donald Trump’s address to Congress.”

With the announcement, Connolly appears to be the highest profile Democrat to boycott Trump’s speech, which the president is scheduled to deliver to a joint session of Congress in the House chamber on Tuesday night.

In a letter to fellow Democrats on Monday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) stopped short of asking lawmakers not to boycott the event. But he also made clear he wants to maximize Democratic attendance to demonstrate to the country “there is a strong opposition party ready, willing and able to serve as a check and balance on the excesses of the administration.”

“The decision to attend the Joint Session is a personal one and we understand that members will come to different conclusions,” Jeffries wrote. “However, it is important to have a strong, determined and dignified Democratic presence in the chamber. The House as an institution belongs to the American people, and as their representatives we will not be run off the block or bullied.”

Connolly said he’s never missed a State of the Union address in his 16 years on Capitol Hill. “But we have never seen our democracy so tested,” he added.

“These are not normal times,” Connolly said. “The challenges my constituents face demand more than sitting in a chamber I revere, listening as if the person addressing our country is not unleashing chaos and cruelty on their lives.

“I cannot give audience to that.”

To read this article as it appeared on the Hill, click here.