During the past couple of weeks, we saw a handful of Democrats in both the House and Senate step up their opposition to passing the Build Back Better Act (BBBA) in its entirety. In the Senate, we saw Manchin and Sinema refuse to accept policies on mitigating climate change and fairly taxing the wealthy. In the House, a few representatives oppose letting Medicare negotiate lower prescription drug prices. As a result, the White House and Congress are in frenetic (re)negotiations, trying to rewrite the BBBA to accommodate their demands.
These Democrats call themselves “moderates” or “centrists,” but they’re actually corporate Democrats, and their complaint that the bill’s price tag ($3.5T over 10 years) is “too high” is a smokescreen to disguise their opposition to specific (wildly popular) policies and programs opposed by their big donors. This is a shamefully hypocritical stand, given that they support a bloated defense bill that is 2.25 times larger than the BBBA, an excessive amount that is even more than the Pentagon requested.
This week, we are asking our representatives not to compromise on the most critical components of the BBBA, and we are asking our senators to speak up and expose the hypocrisy of their corporate Democratic colleagues.
Contact your Members of Congress and tell them: don’t surrender to corporate greed on the Build Back Better Act!
Deadline for Democracy
We are still on a tight Deadline for Democracy. S.1, the For the People Act, couldn’t get conservative Democrats’ votes in the Senate, so Manchin got a team together, stripped out the ethics provisions and most campaign finance reforms, and introduced a compromise bill on September 14. Tonight Senator Schumer will bring the Freedom to Vote Act up for a vote. In the meantime, redistricting has begun in some states, “fraudits” are still being pushed in other states, and vigilante violence continues against election officials. We need President Biden and our senators to speak out, loudly and often, in support of the immediate passage the Freedom to Vote Act.
Tell your Senators and President Biden: support the immediate passage of the Freedom To Vote Act!
If you have friends or family in other states, please ask them to contact their senators to call for immediate passage of the Freedom to Vote Act too.
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How to Save Our Democracy: A Strategy Session with Rep. Lee & Rep. Raskin: Wednesday, October 20, 5:30–6:30 PM. You're invited to a strategy session with Rep. Barbara Lee and Rep. Jamie Raskin to discuss the constitutional crisis we face and what each of us can do to preserve our democracy. This event is co-hosted by our friends at Indivisible East Bay. RSVP to their Zoom Webinar Registration.
Fight Back Fridays: Friday, October 22, 5–6 PM at 1 Post Street. Join a coalition of local Indivisibles every Friday for FIGHT BACK FRIDAYS. We gather at 1 Post in SF (in front of Sen. Feinstein’s office building; at one of the Montgomery Street BART exits) every Friday until the Freedom to Vote Act is passed! More information here.
Get out the vote in Virginia! Sister District San Francisco & Friends Virtual Phone Bank: Sunday, October 24, 12–2 PM PT. It's time to Get Out The Vote in Virginia to protect Democratic control of this key Southern state. Join Sister District San Francisco & Friends and collaborators in the Bay Area and around the nation to help reelect Lashrecse Aird and Alex Askew to Virginia’s House of Delegates. Sign up for a shift here.
Get out the vote in Ohio! Virtual Phone Bank for Ohio’s 15th Congressional district with OPAL: Sundays, 1–3 PM PT, and Tuesdays, 3–5 PM PT. Sundays and Tuesdays, get trained to phone bank and then phone bank at your convenience with OPAL (Ohio Progressive Action Leaders) about the upcoming OH-15 special election in support of the amazing candidate Allison Russo! We have a mission: to reach folks who share our progressive values in every corner of the district and make sure they have a plan to vote by Nov. 2. Sign up for a shift here.
ISF Federal Working Group meeting: Thursday, October 28, 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. All are welcome to join our events!
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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