Dear Friend,

Last night, the Republican party filibustered a bill to protect the voting rights of millions of people. And then Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema sided with the GOP.(1)

President Joe Biden -- and the vast majority of voters -- want to protect voting freedom, and they support a filibuster exception in order to pass voting rights legislation.(2) But Manchin and Sinema voted against a rule change and let the GOP keep voter suppression alive.

We cannot let Manchin and Sinema get away with betraying the voters. We need to not only call out these two publicly, but we're ramping up pressure on the rest of the Democratic caucus to stand against their actions as well.

Manchin and Sinema cannot be allowed to put corporate interests over the people. Will you chip in $5 to help stop them?

President Biden admitted it in his remarks this week: Democratic attempts at bipartisanship have been a failure since he entered office. They've blocked bill after bill despite widespread support for those bills.(3)

Under the current rules, 40 GOP senators, representing just 21% of the country, can block their passage using the racist filibuster rule. And two Democratic senators, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, representing 2.8% of Americans, say they won’t support an exception to this anti-democratic rule -- even though they did so just last month to raise the debt ceiling.(4)

Manchin and Sinema aren't protecting a constitutional rule or standing on ethics. Instead, these two senators are pandering to the wealthy GOP donors and corporations they've been taking money from recently.(5,6) And it's time they were called out publicly for it.

Will you chip in $5 to demand that our senators stand up for the American people instead of corporate interests?

Yours in the fight for our democracy,

Irene, along with Amber, Angela, Annie, Caitlin, Isidra, Jay, Lindsay, LisaMarie, Raquel, and Scottie (the Courage team) 

PS: Courage California is fighting for equity and justice across the state and country. Will you become a monthly donor and help sustain our work?

Donations go to support all of Courage California's work for a more progressive California and country. Follow us now on Facebook or Twitter!

Footnotes:
1. https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/senate-voting-legislation-filibuster/index.html
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/us/politics/biden-filibuster-voting-rights.html
3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/20/mitch-mcconnell-filibuster-brutal-biden-polls/
4. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/01/13/manchin-joins-sinema-destroying-democratic-hopes-pass-voting-rights
5. https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/senate-voting-legislation-filibuster/index.html
6. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2021/12/07/more-than-50-billionaires-including-a-couple-of-trump-supporters-have-donated-to-senator-kyrsten-sinema/?sh=196790413a4d