Both the Senate and the House will soon reconvene to pass (or not) crucial legislation that We the American People desperately need—voting rights, economic recovery and restructuring, infrastructure restoration, police reform, debt ceiling, and so much more. Republicans have vowed to use their filibuster to block everything we need except for maybe the corporate goodies contained in Manchin’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. So we need every Democrat in Congress to support the full Reconciliation Bill as originally proposed by Biden.
In addition to the two voting rights bills, we’re concentrating on the Reconciliation Bill (also known as the American Jobs and Family Plans, the $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill, the human infrastructure bill, and the Build Back Better Act). This week we’re focusing on this bill’s “New Deal” economic-justice provisions. We need to tell our members of Congress, and President Biden himself, to hold the line and fight for the full original proposals, including the following:
- Protection of worker rights
- Well-paying jobs and economic justice
- A national $15/hour minimum wage
Democratic leaders plan to use the reconciliation process to circumvent the Republican filibuster. But there are restrictions on what can be included in legislation passed under reconciliation, and the Senate parliamentarian has already offered her opinion that the minimum wage and possibly other provisions don’t fit her interpretation of what is allowed. So that means Democrats will either have to end the unconstitutional filibuster rule or ignore the parliamentarian’s opinion (which they can legally do). But to take either action, we need the votes of all fifty Democratic senators. So we also need to tell our members of Congress and our President that it’s time to stop chasing the mirage of bipartisanship, stop compromising, and start playing hardball with those Democrats who care more for their big-donor special interests than they do for their constituents.
In addition, because the Supreme Court moved so quickly to obliterate the CDC eviction moratorium, it’s important that we urge our members of Congress to include a CDC-authorization provision in the Reconciliation Bill.
Contact your members of Congress and the White House and demand that the Reconciliation Bill incorporate economic justice!
We already have minority rule in the Senate, and the filibuster just makes it worse
In a democracy, citizens are supposed to have the same amount of voting power: one person, one vote. But that’s not the case in the Senate, where the 40 million people who live in the 22 smallest states get 44 senators to represent their views, while the 40 million people in California get two. The result of this kind of misrepresentation is a strong political bias and a form of minority rule.
The Democratic agenda—including For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act—is popular with the majority of the American people. The filibusters blocking it are politically illegitimate because they violate the central democratic principle of majority rule. But yesterday, the long awaited compromise Freedom to Vote Act was introduced, and Senator Manchin is seeking ten Republican votes for it. Failing that, we are hoping for a “carve-out” from the filibuster for voting rights. While ending the filibuster is our ultimate goal, we need at least to reform the filibuster to secure our voting rights.
Contact your senators and tell them: end the filibuster or at least create a filibuster carve-out for voting rights to protect democracy.
Thank you for voting and volunteering in the recall election!
What an exciting night, right? Not to mention the entire month-plus leading up to it.
There are still plenty of ballots to count. The real results won’t be known until the remaining votes are counted, which will happen in the week to come, with the real, final results to come by October 22.
But right now, it’s looking good.
Of course, even before polls opened yesterday, the leading Republican candidate had already started casting doubt on the legitimacy of a Newsom victory, making false claims of voter fraud—continuing the legacy of Republican and Trumpian disinformation of the past couple of decades. If you see lies or other disinformation on social media about the election process or results, report it to Common Cause’s disinformation tipline.
Election security is too important of an issue to allow it to be co-opted by lies about imaginary voter fraud. Elections must be trustworthy and trusted; we must work to maintain both, and oppose efforts to dismantle either one.
When the leading Republican candidate starts claiming fraud before the election is even over, much like when the recall efforts started before Newsom was even sworn in, that’s how we know it’s only about trying to overrule the people’s voice. We’ve made our voice heard, loud and clear: Newsom is our Governor.
Thank you, everyone who voted, as well as everyone who text banked, phone banked, postcarded, and canvassed to help get the vote out in this crucial election. You proved that we are a strong, united movement that will protect our state and its people from undemocratic attacks by regressive Republicans, push forward urgently-needed progressive legislation, and build a more perfect union that serves all of us.
Thank you also to everyone who does the behind-the-scenes work of California’s elections: elections officials, poll workers, help line staffers, translators, polling place hosts, and voting rights advocates. You make our democracy possible.
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All are welcome to join our events!
ISF Federal Working Group meeting: Thursday, September 23, 7:30–9 PM. Register here for a Zoom meeting to help us develop strategies to influence our members of Congress and the Biden administration to enact a progressive agenda.
Women’s March for Our Rights—Reproductive Justice: Saturday, October 2, 11–12:30 PM at Civic Center. As part of a Women’s March Day of Action, our friends at Women’s March San Francisco are co-organizing a march in the city. Stay tuned for our plans for this action and find out more on their webpage.
About this week’s photo
If you’ve seen our newsletter posts on Twitter and Facebook, you might have noticed that we include a photo or graphic with each issue. This week’s graphic is a photo by Sarah Silbiger for Reuters of the exterior of the US Capitol in its news story about the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill.
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Keep Fighting,
The Indivisible SF Team
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