Friend,
In the span of two days, the San Francisco Chronicle and Politico have called out Dianne Feinstein for being a blue-state senator who refuses to end the filibuster.(1,2)
And Feinstein is feeling the heat we've been putting on her -- she just said she's open to "analyzing reform" of the slavery-era rule.(3)
Our pressure is working, but her response is just not good enough.
With the filibuster in place, all of our progressive priorities -- from Medicare for All to a Green New Deal -- will end up in the same legislative graveyard where Mitch McConnell put more than 400 bills last year alone.(4) It’s time that Feinstein get on board with ending this terrible rule.
Will you donate to Courage California and help pressure Dianne Feinstein to end the filibuster?
Right now, the Senate is considering H.R. 1, a landmark voting rights and election reform bill. But Republicans have already pledged to filibuster the bill, making it impossible to pass. Republicans are, instead, trying to pass over 250 voter suppression bills in 43 states.(5)
Republicans recently used the filibuster to block the $15 minimum wage.(6) They are planning to do the same to upcoming bills on police brutality, gun control, and election reform.(7)
But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer needs every single Democratic senator on board to overturn the rule, and right now, Senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Dianne Feinstein of California won’t sign on.(8) And as long as Feinstein refuses, Manchin and Sinema -- who come from a red state and a swing state, respectively -- have no reason to risk their approval ratings by agreeing to do it either.
By not ending the filibuster, Feinstein is betraying her constituents, who sent her to the Senate to make the country more progressive. Her California colleague, Alex Padilla, has come out in favor of ending the slavery-era rule. Barack Obama has called for its end, as have Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.(9) They realize how unreasonable the McConnell-led Republicans have been, and how much our country needs the legislation they are blocking.
Right now, Feinstein’s approval rating is just 35%, the lowest in her career.(10) She’s vulnerable to public pressure, and the Chronicle’s article is proof that our campaign to get Feinstein to change her mind is working. We’re getting the media attention we need, and now we need to get as many Californians as possible to sign on to call for Feinstein to vote to end the filibuster.
Will you donate to Courage California today?
Yours in the fight for our democracy,
Irene, along with Angela, Annie, Caitlin, Deepthi, Jay, Lindsay, LisaMarie, Molly, Raquel, and Scottie (the Courage team)
Footnotes: 1. https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/It-s-time-for-Dianne-Feinstein-to-pick-a-side-on-16022927.php 2. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/17/biden-filibuster-fight-476684 3. https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-filibuster-abolish-15-minimum-wage-blow-1572279 4. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/state-voting-bills-tracker-2021 5. https://americanindependent.com/donald-trump-mitch-mcconnell-supreme-court-house-of-representatives-bills-senate/ 6. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-voting-idUSKBN2B60FK 7. https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/It-s-time-for-Dianne-Feinstein-to-pick-a-side-on-16022927.php 8. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/policy-2020/voting-changes/eliminate-senate-filibuster/ 9. https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/It-s-time-for-Dianne-Feinstein-to-pick-a-side-on-16022927.php 10. https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/It-s-time-for-Dianne-Feinstein-to-pick-a-side-on-16022927.php |