Action # 68 Three Important Phone Calls to Make Today
For the Senators: Call Today, Thursday March 13! Senators King and Collins should vote AGAINST the Continuing Resolution on the budget. The bill is a travesty which would perpetuate the Trump/Musk slashing of the government for the rest of the year. It gives them blanket permission to continue their rampage. Among the toxic provisions in the Continuing Resolution: zeroing out $40 M in election security funding. This program is chaired nationally by our own Shenna Bellows, who explains that it is an essential fund to prevent voter suppression and assure election integrity.
You may have noticed that in Action # 66, we proposed a rather clever Senate amendment that would have tied the hands of the Trump/Musk wrecking crew, but the Republican House made that remedy impossible by going on recess early. (Any amendment in the Senate would have had to go back to the House for reconciliation, so they flew the coop.) Now, the Senate is apparently left with only an up-or-down vote. They need to vote NO. Don’t let them argue that a short-term shutdown will mean Armageddon for the average American. What it WILL do is force the Republicans to deal with the mess they have allowed to happen, by lying about what their Continuing Resolution contains. It is NOT simply a continuation of the Biden budget. There is dangerous, precedent-setting stuff in there.
Senator King (202) 224-5344. Senator Collins (202) 224-2523. Call Thursday
For Representative Golden: As you may have heard, he was the sole Democrat to vote FOR the Continuing Resolution. We tried to dissuade him (Action #67) but he voted for it anyway. He is not in a good place with his constituents right now, because of his opportunistic vote. Why opportunistic? He waited until he knew the Republicans would win by a tiny margin whichever way he voted, so he could polish his bipartisan image by voting with them. You may have received an email containing his rationale for his vote. It is pretty lame, if you understand what a bag of dreck the Continuing Resolution contained.
So, will he vote again for HR22? Voting against it this time would be a “golden chance” for him to turn about-face and do the right thing. Light up his phones! HR 22 is simply a voter suppression bill that would fundamentally change who gets to vote. It will suppress the vote of old people, young people, women (especially married and divorced women), handicapped individuals, recent immigrants, people of color. Who does that leave? You guessed it: white males, i.e. 31% of the population, holding 65% of elected offices. Check Action #54 for more background. When you call Golden’s staff, and they start to tell you that there are failsafe provisions that will allow married women to vote even if their birth certificate does not have their current name, ask them to read to you the section on criminal penalties for poll workers who do not “vet” the credentials of the voter to the satisfaction of the administration. Ask them if Golden thinks that the diligent, mostly retired, mostly grandmotherly volunteers who manage voting in your town should have to accept that arbitrary and capricious risk.
Representative Golden: Since the House is recessed, you can try to reach him in Maine on Friday
(202) 224-3121 (DC office), (207) 249-7400 (Bangor office)
https://www.congress.gov/119/bills/hr22/BILLS-119hr22ih.pdf