Fellow Conservative,

Government funding runs out at midnight, September 30th. If Congress doesn’t come to a spending agreement by then the government will shut down on October 1st. This has been a developing situation for the past few weeks and while an agreement has still not been reached, it appears they’re headed for the worst case scenario we all worked to avoid.

Update: Spending State of Play

On Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson moved forward with a floor vote on a spending bill that would have accomplished two major objectives: blocked the Democrats from passing a Christmas omnibus and enhanced election integrity nation-wide.

Unfortunately, 206 Democrats and 14 Republicans voted against this bill and stopped it from passing (see how your representative voted).

This is a huge missed opportunity. This bill included the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would have created nation-wide enforcement mechanisms to make sure that illegal immigrants and non-citizens don’t vote in federal elections.

It also would have funded the government for six months with a continuing resolution (CR). This would have interrupted the Democrats’ plan to extend funding until December, then force Republicans into conceding to their spending agenda by threatening a government shutdown right before Christmas.

They’ve done it before, and it’s nearly always worked.

Heritage Action’s position has always been that delivering both a six-month CR and the SAVE Act is ideal. Delivering one is a victory. Delivering neither amounts to the worst case scenario. .

While the SAVE Act is dormant for now, conservatives in the House could still pass a six-month CR and dodge the trap being set by Democrats. But there isn’t much time.

>>>Call Congress and tell them to support a six-month CR

Update on the Kids Online Safety Act

Data shows that American children are more anxious, lonely, depressed, and suicidal because of the amount of time they spend on their phones and social media. Social media companies know the destructive impact their products have on children and teens because they deliberately designed their products to be addicting and exploitative. Congress can’t ignore the havoc this is causing among younger generations and must take action to reign in Big Tech.

On Wednesday, Rep. Gus Bilirakis and Chair Cathy McMorris Rogers helped pass the Kids Online Safety Act (H.R. 7891) out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

KOSA would accomplish three goals:

1. Provide platform account ability by requiring them to take reasonable measures to make sure their products prevent and mitigate harms to minors.
2. Increase transparency by requiring platforms to share their policies and practices related to user data in a clear, conspicuous, and easy-to-understand manner.
3. Empower users easy-to-use tools that allow kids and their parents to limit notifications, who can contact them, the amount of time they can spend on the platforms, and restrict the sharing of their geolocation.

The bill marked up by Committee this week includes changes making the proposal even stronger than the version theSenate already passed (91-3).

Through work on our team at Heritage Action and policy analysts at The Heritage Foundation, your concerns prompted changes in the bill that added greater First Amendment protections and strengthened definitions in the bill to guard against misinterpretation. Knowing that time is limited for action on the bill this Congress, Heritage Action’s President, Kevin Roberts, wrote a letter to the Energy and Commerce Committee urging members to support it and enable a chance for it to reach the House floor.

This they did. Now conversation will be held among the entire Congress on how we can protect children from exploitative digital environments while still maintaining First amendment protections for content creators.

Heritage Action will be involved throughout the process and keep you informed as discussions progress.

>>>Read more about the bill HERE

In Case You Missed It

The danger of an open border

A former San Diego Sector Chief Patrol official, Aaron Heitk, testified before Congress illustrating the extreme danger of an open border. He said:

“In San Diego, we had an exponential increase in Significant Interest Aliens [SIAs]. These are aliens with significant ties to terrorsim…Prior to this administration, the San Diego sector averaged 10-15 SIAs per year. Once word was out that the border was far easier to cross, San Diego went to over 100 SIAs in 2022, way over 100 SIAs in 2023 and more than that this year,... These are only the ones we caught.”

Under the Biden-Harris administration, Vice President Harris was put in charge of border security and has clearly failed. It’s not just people with ties to terrorists that are crossing, but also illegal and lethal drugs.

We cannot continue to subject the American people to the dangers of an open border.

Matt Walsh joined the Kevin Roberts Podcast

This week, Kevin Roberts, President of The Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action, hosted the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh on his podcast to discuss Walsh’s newest film, “Am I Racist?”. In this movie, Matt Walsh goes deep undercover in the world of diversity, equity, and inclusion, asking the simple question, “Am I a racist?”.

>>>Watch the interview HERE<<<

This movie will have you both laughing and scratching your head at the ridiculous lengths the Left will go to in order to push their agenda. Walsh masterfully uses satire and humor to show the absurdity of a race-centered worldview and exposes the grift behind their ideas.

Don’t miss a chance to watch this movie in theaters.

As always, thank you for all that you do.

- Ryan and the Heritage Action team

Join the fight to advance the conservative agenda.