By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief

WASHINGTON, D.C.-Protesters angry over a breakdown in discussions between President Obama and Democratic and Republican Congressional Leaders that resulted in a presidential sequester order on Friday for massive across-the-board- spending cuts picketed the Capital Hill office of Republican House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio (pictured in red tie) three days before the debacle and allegedly attacked a staffer, a Capital Hill source told Cleveland Urban News.Com Friday evening.

“On Tuesday morning 50 protesters were banging on the Capital Hill office door of Rep. Boehner demanding the he stop what was about to become a sequester, and when one of his female staffers stepped in the hallway to try to calm the crowd she was pushed and shoved and another staffer had to rescue her,” the source said. “At mid morning 25 more protesters appeared and by 1:30 pm protesters were banging on the door demanding to see the House Speaker.”

The source said that the issue became so heated that a group that was meeting with staff members for support from Boehner on a community project issue had to be ushered out of his office.

Boehner was not in his office at the time and held a press conference the day before and accused the president and Congressional Democrats of demanding higher taxes and thus causing the sequester, another name for massive across-the-board spending cuts

"You know the president proposed the sequester, yet he's far more interested in holding campaign rallies than he is in urging his Senate Democrats to actually pass a plan," said Boehner.

Obama and Congressional Democrats argue that the spending  cuts to programs to education, unemployment benefits, and other federal programs with no increase in revenue are ludicrous and will hurt vulnerable Americans and the middle class.

On Thursday, a day before the president was forced to sign the sequester order after negotiations fell through and the March 1 sequester deadline came to fruition, Ohio Democratic  congresspersons Rep. Joyce Beatty (pictured in White attire), Tim Ryan (pictured in light blue tie), and Marcia L. Fudge (pictured in dark blue attire), who is also chairperson of the Congressional Black Caucus, sent a letter to Republican Governor John Kasich (pictured in dark blue tie)demanding that he urge Congressional Republicans to come back to the sequester bargaining table.

"As governor of Ohio, we trust you understand the significance the sequester will have on our economy, and how we must all join together to work in a bi-partisan fashion to do everything we can to avoid the  self-inflicted wound from partisan bickering," the letter reads in part.

Fudge, a Warrensville Hts. Democrat, and Beatty, a Columbus Democrat elected to Congress for the first time last year,  are the only two Black congresspersons for Ohio.

Kasich, himself, is a former congressman.

Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by phone at 216-659-0473.