Friend,

As we near the end of November, I want to take a step back to share with you what’s been going on in my district and our work together in Congress.

You likely remember that at the end of last month, Senator Bernie Sanders visited with me and the local heroes of #13thDistrictStrong, and I endorsed him for President of the United States. Here’s a video about his visit and our plans to address injustice in Michigan and around the country together:

This month, we got started on one piece of that plan.

Together with Representative Barbara Lee, Senator Sanders and I introduced a bill to end the widening pay gap between CEOs and their workers.

Right now, heads of our country’s richest corporations are making millions of dollars while paying their workers poverty wages and forcing their workers to rely on taxpayer-funded social services. The Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act would tax corporations that pay their CEOs more than 50x their median employee salaries. These tax penalties would address this injustice by raising billions of dollars to fund critical services for working families.

Other bills and resolutions I’ve introduced in Congress recently:

• The Protecting Consumers from Market Manipulation Act, with Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García. It would set up safeguards for everyday Americans by limiting the revenue that large non-financial corporations, including Big Tech, can derive from financial activity like banking.

• The Standing Against Dirty Diplomacy (SADD) Act, with Rep. Jared Huffman. It would block U.S. financing of fossil fuel projects abroad, by preventing the U.S. Export-Import Bank and OPIC from dumping billions of taxpayer dollars into dirty energy projects.

• And I introduced a resolution condemning the Indian government’s violent human rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir, and affirming the rights of the Kashmiri people to determine their own political future. We’ve since held a congressional hearing to learn more about the region’s conflict.

And I met with residents of #13thDistrictStrong, including:

• McDonald’s workers, who went on strike for a union, a $15 minimum wage, and to put a stop to sexual harassment in their workplace. I was honored to march with them in Detroit to demand human dignity and an economy that puts people before profits.

  

• Local organizations, including Michigan League of Conservation Voters.

• Seniors and other residents who came to our town halls and community conversations, to talk about issues including Black maternal health, homeownership, and impeachment:

  

• Activists demanding that environmental polluter Fiat Chrysler do more to protect the community and respond to people’s health concerns:

  

• Residents who heard from me on a panel at the REDLINE Speaks town hall about accountability and economic growth.

Protecting civil liberties in the U.S. House:

• I joined Rep. Earl Blumenauer and other Democratic colleagues in asking the Judiciary Committee to change the Patriot Act, in particular to repeal the section that enables unconstitutional government surveillance of people who hold political views that the current administration opposes, which disproportionately targets immigrant communities and people of color.

• In the House Committee on Financial Services, of which I’m honored to be a part, we held hearings on the No Biometric Barriers Act, a bill I introduced with Reps. Yvette Clark and Ayanna Pressley, to prohibit dangerous and potentially unconstitutional biometric technology, such as facial recognition technology, from being used in federal public housing.

• I was also honored to meet with and hear sobering accounts from transgender immigrants in a congressional briefing about the human rights violations they’re facing in detention centers.

• And I got to spend time with one of my heroes, #13thDistrictStrong’s trans woman Aimee Stephens, who’s fighting against workplace discrimination in the U.S. Supreme Court.

• In the House Committee on Financial Services, I asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to take responsibility for the hate and violence that Facebook enables. I asked about his platform’s enabling of white supremacist hate groups, who use Facebook events for armed protests at mosques. I also pointedly asked him about Facebook’s disturbing policy of allowing paid, targeted disinformation ads from people running for office, including those that contain white supremacist hate speech.

Fighting for housing rights:

• I questioned Trump’s U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary, Ben Carson, in the House about his agency’s attempt to rob families of disparate impact protections.

• I also joined Rep. Maxine Waters and Rep. Ayanna Pressley to write to Sec. Carson in support of low-income tenants’ rights and attempts to save their homes.

• We also held a subcommittee hearing on the housing and lending discrimination faced by the LGBTQ+ community, where we challenged HUD’s attacks on transgender people, including people who need to change their IDs to match their gender, and people who are experiencing homelessness.

• And I requested that multiple House committees hold hearings to investigate whether billionaire donors influenced our government in my district and across the country by illegally exploiting a tax program designed to benefit low-income people (“opportunity zones,” where real estate developers can get tax breaks). Recently, ProPublica revealed in a report that billionaire investor Dan Gilbert may have influenced the designation of “opportunity zone” tax breaks in Detroit.

Holding the crooked CEO, Trump, accountable through impeachment:

• One of the Committees on which I sit, the Oversight Committee, suffered a great loss when our Chairman, Rep. Elijah Cummings, passed away in October. This month, we elected a new Chair, Rep. Carolyn Maloney. Rep. Maloney is the first woman to ever preside over the Oversight Committee, and she’s a champion for truth and justice. While we mourn the loss of an incredible leader, we’re looking ahead and plan to work together to hold this administration accountable.

• As I noted in an update last week, the public impeachment hearings have begun.

• This week, they’ve been heating up, with more and more nonpartisan patriots and public servants testifying about how Trump extorted Ukraine’s government to aid Trump’s own re-election.

• Such patriots acknowledge that by speaking the truth, they’re taking a risk, because in true authoritarian style, Trump is threatening them and their families.

• These patriots include:

• Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman and Jennifer Williams, a foreign policy adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, who both listened in on the July 25 call between Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. Lt. Col. Vindmand said: “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Without hesitation, I knew that I had to report this to the White House counsel. It is improper for the president of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen and a political opponent.”

• Dr. Fiona Hill, a former Trump advisor on Russia, who confirmed our fears about Ukraine and also about Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election. She also blasted Republicans, including Trump, who’ve lied and tried to blame Democrats, furthering partisanship in ongoing attempts to upend reality.

• As we’ve seen, Trump has been intimidating these witnesses and obstructing this process in real time, which even Fox News is reporting on. He’s scared, because the truth is on our side. And as he continues to react publicly, he’s making it harder and harder for his allies to stay by his side.

• Here’s some of what I told VICE News about the impeachment proceedings:

  It’s not just about Trump’s outrageous actions re: Ukraine. His racist abuses of power, and his acts of corruption, are also impeachable.

  And we are going to win. Republicans are starting to hear from their constituents at their town halls, who are asking what they’ll do about Trump, who is king-like and lawless. And people like me are winning elections because people are realizing that our government has been hijacked by corporations, and they’re tired of it. One thing that unites us all is that people do not want a corrupted democracy that is led by the wealthy.

  I tell my 14-year-old son Adam that we will impeach Trump because I believe too much in our country. We’re not going to fail the American people. We’re going to hold him accountable.

  Too many of us are paying attention, and too many of us are not going to stay silent. More and more people have awoken to understand what’s in jeopardy. People are rising up.

Want to rise up, too? Join By the People’s rapid response network to take action in support of impeachment.

I’ll continue to keep you updated on the critical issues that we’re working on in Congress and in our communities.

Always serving you,

Rashida