John,

This Mother’s Day, I’m recommitting to the fight for mothers and families.

I started the Mamas’ Caucus in Congress to advocate for working parents and mothers of color. We’re fighting for equal pay, paid family and medical leave, affordable childcare, quality early education, and policies to fix urgent disparities in Black maternal health.

When Trump froze and delayed funding for Head Start programs, he jeopardized crucial support for 800,000 children under the age of 5—including meals, healthcare, and childcare. I led the Mamas’ Caucus and 23 of my colleagues in sending him a letter demanding he restore funding. We then saw immediate improvements to help over 50 Head Start centers access their funding. But the threat continues, and I promise to continue defending these vital programs from Trump’s attacks.

Now, Republicans are working on a budget with the largest-ever cuts to Medicaid and food assistance, all to pay for tax breaks to billionaires. Almost half of all U.S. births are paid for by Medicaid. Half of all children in my state of Michigan rely on Medicaid for their healthcare, as do 60% of elderly adults. So I’m joining colleagues to try to force a vote in the House of Representatives to block these cuts.

Meanwhile, Trump just requested the largest military budget in the history of our country: Over $1 trillion for war and death, while Americans sleep on the streets, die from a lack of healthcare coverage, and ration their insulin. Our government always has funding for the military defense industry, but not our families. So I’m leading legislation to block members of Congress from owning stock in defense contractors. Elected officials should serve the people rather than their stock portfolios.

Our movement is growing, demanding our government stop spending taxpayer dollars on endless wars, and instead invest in people’s needs. For example, we have enough money to house everyone, provide universal healthcare, and remove every lead pipe in our country that is poisoning our children.

To protect our right to clean water, I started the Congressional Get the Lead Out Caucus, created a $1.1 billion fund to stop water shutoffs early in the pandemic, and passed historic amendments in the House (which unfortunately weren’t signed into law) to provide $23 billion to fully replace dangerous lead-contaminated water pipes. Last year, we successfully pushed federal agencies to begin replacing lead-contaminated service lines.

I’ve also led transformative legislation like the End Child Poverty Act, which would create an expansive universal child benefit and provide monthly payments of $428 per child directly to families, for each child between the ages of 0 and 18. This would also cover the lowest-wealth families, who are traditionally left out of the tax credit system.

With most Americans living paycheck to paycheck, direct payments like this are essential to survival. We know that the most effective and efficient way to reduce poverty and stimulate the economy is by directly giving people money—so that’s what our federal government should be doing.

The government should also end medical debt, utility debt, education debt, and more. I worked with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to change the lives of 15 million Americans by removing $50 billion in medical debt from their credit reports. And now I’m pushing to defend this progress from Trump’s attacks.

I believe in the power of the people resisting this presidential administration. Right now, we must defend current life-saving programs from the billionaires trying to steal from us. But we can’t stop there. Now’s the time to ramp up our demands for an expanded investment in people’s basic needs.

I will never stop fighting for the government and society that we all deserve, where families of all backgrounds can thrive with dignity. If you’d like to pitch into my campaign, please use the button below. Thank you so much for fighting alongside me.

Wishing you and your loved ones a happy Mother’s Day,

Rashida