Friend,

Right now, millions of Americans are struggling to put food on the table and pay their bills, while grieving the loss of loved ones.

But instead of supporting struggling people and small businesses, Mitch McConnell, Republicans, and the Trump Administration have been exploiting the pandemic to bail out already-wealthy executives of large corporations, while our neighbors are left to die.

Sign the petition to make your voice heard: Tell Congress to put people first—not corporations.

With your support and partnership, I’ve been pushing bold proposals that actually center people most in need as we respond to the pandemic. But too many have been dismissed by my Republican colleagues in Congress.

Why? Because most of them are millionaires and disconnected from the everyday reality of life in this country—where poverty was already a crisis before the pandemic. One of my colleagues asked me why people don’t have savings right now. I had to explain that most Americans live check by check.

This disconnect between Congressmembers and most of the American people is no accident. Many members of Congress—on both sides of the aisle—would rather listen to their wealthy donors than you, their resident.

Only 60 members of Congress (me included!) don’t take corporate PAC money. When you follow the money, you see that corporations are paying elected officials to deprioritize your needs and instead line shareholders’ pockets. This hijacking and tainting of our democracy is why billionaires are getting richer off this pandemic, while the rest of us suffer or die.

Will you join me and a group of progressive organizations and elected leaders to demand change, friend?

Unfortunately, we’ve been seeing all too clearly that in addition to the coronavirus, corporate greed is another disease that’s brutalizing our country. Millions of Americans are expendable to the CEOs who dictate our public policy. And too many of our Congresspeople are complicit.

We can see it in the bills that have passed out of Congress, which have utterly failed people. The wealthiest corporations in the country and world are taking hundreds of billions of OUR tax dollars without oversight, including money meant for struggling small businesses.

Rather than helping their employees or our broader economy, these corporations are just hoarding this money. For example, one large airline got aid and then laid off people the next day. What’s the point of a government bailout if it’s not helping workers?

Meanwhile, the limited financial support for individual Americans comes with so many bureaucratic hoops and delays. We need recurring direct payments to people, but so far there’s only been one stimulus check, which won’t cover people’s needs—and many people haven’t even gotten yet! That one stimulus check also fails to serve undocumented immigrants or the 25% of Americans who are unbanked.

Clearly, the federal government’s priorities are off: We have not centered aid directly on people.

Sign the petition to tell Congress: Bail out people, not corporations!

In my community, the third poorest congressional district in the country, we’ve already been in survival mode for far too long. We’re already familiar with the broken systems that generate profit for private corporations while killing us or pushing us further into poverty.

In our district, polluting billionaires get hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks, while our schools (which rely on that tax money) close. And the schools that do stay open? Their water is turned off because it’s unsafe to drink. Those of us fighting these injustices for years have been told that we should just wait and hope that the richest people in town cared enough about the rest of us to throw us some scraps.

So when I first got to Congress a year and a half ago, I was ready to make change happen immediately. Although I expected pushback, I’ve been continually frustrated by the lack of urgency―particularly from the other side of the aisle. And now, during a global pandemic, Republicans in the Senate are blocking critical action. We don’t have time to wait: People are dying.

Millionaires in Congress like Mitch McConnell are literally bragging about doing nothing. They don’t understand the pain, oppression, and trauma our neighbors are experiencing.

That’s why our team is not only pushing for bold policies in Congress to match the scale of the crisis, but we’re also continually checking in with our community to see what people need and connecting them with resources. While our neighbors appreciate the support, many are hurting and feeling neglected by the federal government’s lack of action, including one grandmother who broke down in tears while talking with me.

Friend, it’s our collective job to push back. Working together, both outside and inside the halls of Congress, we can make change happen. Together, we need to raise our collective voices to make sure that our leaders listen and invest in people who need help now.

Please sign the petition to tell Congress: Bail out people, not corporations!

I want you to know that my progressive colleagues and I are rooted in our communities, and we’re fighting for everyone. We won’t let this country keep turning its back on you. We won’t back down to corporate bullies or their cronies in Congress.

Right now, in this emergency where our broken systems are laid bare for all to see, is the moment for us to come together and fight back against corporate greed. It’s an apt time for the wise saying from ancient Jewish scholar Hillel: “If not now, when?”

Thanks for fighting with me,

Rashida