Indivisibles,
This is Sarah, Indivisible’s Chief Communications Officer (if you’ve been
involved for a while, you may remember me from way back when the
Indivisible Guide was first released!).
I know our team has been sending a ton of emails with a lot of
information, so I wanted to answer a couple frequently asked questions.
Obviously, our goal here is to be as helpful as possible, keep you aware
of things that are moving, and make sure you have what you need to be
successful in our critical advocacy efforts during this period.
First off: We’re expecting a vote on the next COVID-19 relief package in
the Senate today around 4:00 pm eastern. So there’s really very, very
little time left to have an impact on this bill. If you can, please
[ [link removed] ]make a call (or three) in the next few hours.
We’ve gotten a few questions about our priorities during this period, and
some requests for help connecting the dots between some of the legislative
asks that we want to try to address for you before we keep piling on.
Here’s what people have asked:
Why are there so many things you're emailing us about?
That is a great question. There are so many things. Fundamentally, our
priority during this period is that Congress put #PeopleOverProfits -- and
we believe a package that does that would follow the 5 main principles and
policy specifics of the People's Bailout (discussed and outlined in great
detail on our [ [link removed] ]landing page). As a reminder, those 5 principles are:
[ [link removed] ]1. Protect our democratic processes while protecting each other.2. Make
health the top priority, for all people, with no exceptions.3. Provide
economic relief directly to the people.4. Rescue workers and communities,
not corporate executives.5. Make a down payment on a regenerative economy,
while preventing future crises.
That's where things start to get more complicated -- but let's break it
down! Under each of those principles, we'd like to see a number of
policies included in the next coronavirus response package that Congress
moves.
For example, we think the gold standard to protect our democratic
processes while protecting each other (principle one) would be Senator
Warren's plan for $4B to do a huge list of things that [ [link removed] ]we detail in our
explainer here.
On that second principle of making health the top priority, for all
people, with no exceptions, that's where you'll see Indivisible talking
about the importance of increasing federal funding for Medicaid and other
health programs that cover low-wage people and communities of color, and
that testing and treatment are available regardless of immigration status
(and a few other things like ending surprise medical billing.)
Over the next period of days and weeks, you're likely going to hear from
us on other specific bills and policies that fall within this broader
People's Bailout framework -- and we'll want to give those attention too:
talk about them on social media, drive calls, record videos, etc.
You've only told us about federal advocacy -- what about state and local
things?
Also a great question. Right now, we have [ [link removed] ]this wonderful resource
designed to work for anyone in any state to pick up and start to think
about their individual and group state and local advocacy. Our State
Policy team is working on an addition for that resource that would be a
toolkit for groups with some step-by-step activities to drive some of this
state and local advocacy -- we hope to have that to you soon!
We're also talking about how we can ramp up this support through a scaled
support system and some deeper, targeted state-level work. We'll have more
to report out on that front very soon!
Why are you pushing things like videos and email your member of Congress so
hard?
So, here's the deal. Just like we've had to adjust how we work here at
Indivisible, members of Congress and their staff have also had to adjust
the way that they're working. From conversations on the Hill, we’re
hearing that lots of offices are only routing their office's calls to one
remote staff member, that voicemail boxes are filling up fast, and that
people are simply having a harder time getting through.
That said, emails are being logged just like phone calls into their
constituent management system (so, if you make a call, those details go to
the exact same place as if you send an email), and staff are sending more
reports of what they're seeing tagging the member of Congress on social
media.
For all of those reasons, we're just giving folks some extra tools to make
their voices heard during this period that we think will be effective.
Also, remember, letters to the editor and longer form op-eds are always
effective in taking control of and shaping the narrative on issues
constituents care about (and you can be sure that the letter or op-ed will
show up in your member of Congress' press clips if it mentions them or an
issue their staff is closely monitoring).
What’s specifically in this version of the relief package (the one they’re
voting on today)?
Not much that’s good. As we [ [link removed] ]said in this tweet thread, this bill is far
from the kind of people-first response we wanted to see from Congress.
* No $ for the unemployed or those in need
* No requirements on large companies to maintain payroll
* No health care for those who don't have insurance
* No hazard pay or Essential Worker Bill of Rights
* No aid for states and cities (in fact, [ [link removed] ]Trump has said he doesn't
want it in there because he wants to use it as leverage later to get
states to open sooner)
* No rent, mortgage, or utility shut off freeze
* No money for the USPS
* No money or other provisions to secure our elections before November
All in all: it doesn’t do nearly enough for the people most impacted by
COVID-19. We need to continue pressuring our members of Congress to
#PutPeopleFirst, and we need to do it now because they’re voting later
today.
Got it. Where are all those scripts and resources again?
You got it, fam. Here's a quick list of the main resources you should have
at your fingertips.
Call/Email/Letter to the Editor scripts:
* People’s Bailout [ [link removed] ]House call script
* People’s Bailout [ [link removed] ]Senate call script
* [ [link removed] ]Protecting our Elections Senate call script
* [ [link removed] ]Email all three of your members of Congress
* Help for writing a [ [link removed] ]letter to the editor
Video Pages:
* Make a video supporting a People’s Bailout
* Make a video supporting the [ [link removed] ]Essential Worker Bill of Rights
* [ [link removed] ]Make a video asking members of congress to protect November’s
elections
References and Resources:
* [ [link removed] ]Protecting our Elections resource
* [ [link removed] ]The main People over Profits website
* [ [link removed] ]Indivisible’s Twitter
* [ [link removed] ]Indivisible’s Facebook Page
That's it. Those are my answers to the questions we’re getting the most.
If you have more, shoot us an email (you can reply to this one and we’ll
get it, even though it’s called “no-reply”) and we’ll try and get back to
you soon.
Stay safe, stay healthy, stay active,Sarah (and lots of people working on
this!)
P.S. -- As you’ve probably guessed, we’ve had to do a lot of re-working of
our plans over the last six weeks. That’s what we’re experts at: adjusting
and reorganizing to respond to Trump’s latest, but it still meant a lot of
new work we didn’t expect, right at a moment when many of our supporters
are losing their jobs and aren’t able to donate to support the work. If
you’re able to [ [link removed] ]make a gift to help offset that and fund this and all
our work, we'd really appreciate it. No pressure.
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