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Indivisibles,

If there’s one thing we know about Republicans, it’s that they’re really
really good at not doing their jobs.

And today, I’m sorry to report that Republicans have come up with yet
another way to not do their jobs.

And it’s rapidly becoming a big problem.

It’s a bit of a long story, so I’m gonna go with my favorite format: the
Q&A.

What is going on here?

About three months ago, President Biden nominated a slate of highly
qualified and all-around excellent folks to the Federal Reserve. These are
the people tasked with managing our economy, regulating banks and big
corporations, and more. They’re important roles, and he made some great
choices - Dr. Sarah Bloom Raskin, an enormously qualified economist who
served in critical roles steering us through the Great Recession and would
provide steady oversight of our financial system, and Dr. Lisa Cook, who
will be the first Black woman on the Fed Board and who’s a leading scholar
in reducing racial and gender disparities to improve economic growth.

After a hearing where the nominees got rave reviews, it seemed reasonable
to assume they’d be voted out of committee and then get confirmed by the
Senate.

Then… Republican Senators, led by Pat Toomey (R-PA) simply stopped showing
up to the committee markup meetings. Like, literally just stopped coming
to work. And according to the rules, that means there aren’t enough
Senators present for a quorum to pass the nominees out of the committee.

That means that these nominations are stuck - even though we have every
reason to believe that they would be passed out of committee and confirmed
on the Senate floor IF we could just get a vote.

TL:DR; Republicans don’t have enough votes to reject these nominees - so
instead they’re boycotting the process and weaponizing the rules to strand
the nominations in committee.

OK, so why are Republicans doing this?

Republicans’ public objections focus on Sarah Bloom Raskin, an enormously
qualified regulator who’s been confirmed to high-level roles in the past
with bipartisan votes. Why? Because in the past, she’s spoken about the
systemic risks that climate change poses to our economy. And so [ [link removed] ]the oil
and gas industry has decided to tank her nomination - and they’re putting
a ton of money behind the Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee to
do their dirty work.

But let’s take a step back and talk about the bigger picture. Right now,
we’re seeing higher inflation as a result of a supply chain [ [link removed] ]that was
built to fail by greedy corporations and the ongoing disruptions related
to the pandemic. Corporations and Wall Street have taken advantage of this
to jack up prices, and have [ [link removed] ]routinely bragged to their investors about
their ability to pass on costs to consumers. Many of these same
corporations, like Kroger, [ [link removed] ]are showering their wealthy investors with
stock buybacks, even while [ [link removed] ]many of their employees struggle to afford
the food they sell. 

Republicans are covering for their friends on Wall Street by blaming Joe
Biden’s American Rescue Plan for rising prices. The same American Rescue
Plan that spurred [ [link removed] ]one of the fastest recoveries from a recession in
history. Now, despite all of their fearmongering about inflation,
Republicans are intent on sabotaging federal agencies tasked with managing
our economy. 

They are putting us in greater danger during a period of global
instability.

If Republicans were serious about tackling inflation, they’d prioritize
filling these jobs. But they’re not. Instead, they’re holding this
bipartisan slate of highly-qualified nominees hostage so that they can do
the oil and gas industry’s bidding with their [ [link removed] ]bad faith objections to
Sarah Bloom Raskin. 

If these nominees are so important, why haven’t we heard about them
before? 

We haven’t talked to you about these nominees before because… well, it’s
really, super-normal that nominees like this just move forward and get
confirmed! Honestly, we’re pretty alarmed that this is an issue at all.
It’s a new and dangerous case of Republicans weaponizing the rules to do
everything they can to block President Biden’s agenda.

This is a scary precedent to set. If Republicans get their way on this,
there’s no reason they’ll stop here. There are a LOT of nominees for any
number of federal agencies and the judiciary who they could try this exact
same tactic on. 

What are we going to do about this?

We need some good old-fashioned public outrage here. Republicans are
sabotaging our economic recovery to do the bidding of their donors. They
are quite literally refusing to show up to their jobs. That’s unacceptable
in any other workplace in the country - and it should be unacceptable for
Senators.

If you’re represented by one of the Republicans on this committee (ie, if
you live in the Carolinas or the Dakotas, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Idaho,
Alabama, Tennessee, Wyoming, Kansas, or Montana), you should get in touch
with them [ [link removed] ]to demand Republicans on Senate Banking do their jobs.

And, I want to give a shout out to the Indivisibles who are already on the
case. In Pennsylvania, Indivisible [names of groups] showed up at Pat
Toomey’s office to [ [link removed] ]protest his shenanigans. 

If you're not represented by one of those people, we need to make sure
they don't get to do this on the sly. Share [ [link removed] ]this great article on your
social media and let your friends and family know what new ridiculousness
the GOP is up to today. Then text INDIVISIBLE to 59798 so we can keep you
up to speed on any new developments. And keep an eye on your own Senators:
we need to make sure Senate Democrats don’t cave to this bad faith
obstructionism from the other side. So far, they are standing united, and
we need to keep it that way!

We’ve known for a long time that Republicans will take advantage of every
loophole they can find to sabotage President Biden’s agenda, undermine
good policy, and do the bidding of their donors. We need to push back
hard, while this is still a trial balloon.

Thank you again for sticking with us through every twist and turn of this
congress. Together, we’ll stop Republicans’ attempts at minority rule and
make our country better for everyone.

In solidarity,

Leah

P.S. – if you want to get the most breaking news on this and all our
priorities, be sure to follow us on [ [link removed] ]Facebook and [ [link removed] ]Twitter and text
INDIVISIBLE to 59798 to join our mobile rapid response team.

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