John,

Today marks two years since the January 6th attack on our country, and the same MAGA Republicans who helped orchestrate the attack and tried to cover it up are now behind the stalemate in the House of Representatives that’s prevented us from starting our work for 2023.

Here’s more about the chaos happening in Congress right now:

A faction of extreme far-right Republicans—who also voted to overturn 2020’s election results and are still spreading lies about that election—think that Trumper Rep. Kevin McCarthy isn’t extreme enough for them. So they’ve blocked him from getting enough votes to become Speaker of the House.

It's day 4 and we still don't have a Speaker of the House. Without a Speaker, we can’t swear in Congressmembers, we can’t introduce or vote on legislation, begin committee work or otherwise operate our branch of government.

My sons Adam and Yousif came with me to Congress this week to watch me get sworn into office for the third time. But with this stalemate, he’s been witnessing a historic event that hasn’t happened in over 100 years. After 11 voting rounds this week, the House still hasn’t voted in a new Speaker.

For anyone to be elected Speaker of the House, they need 218 votes, which is a majority. At the moment, the House has 222 Republicans, but not all are supporting the same member for Speaker.

With Republicans’ narrow majority, they need to unify, but the extremist bloc is leveraging their current power to get concessions from McCarthy and secure even more power in the new Congress. These concessions will only impede our work to help our neighbors who need us to take bold action on the issues that matter to them.

For example, this far-right bloc wants leadership positions on powerful committees to control which bills go to the House floor for votes. They also want to strip funding for the salaries of Biden appointees and fast track dangerous pipelines.

Meanwhile, they’ve tried to block investigations into the attack on January 6th, 2021, many of them even defying subpoenas from investigators. They’ve already vowed to end the House’s January 6th Committee, which has uncovered clear evidence of a calculated criminal conspiracy to sabotage the results of our election.

These far-right MAGA Republicans are dangers to our democracy.

They’ve succeeded in getting some concessions from McCarthy, but they are still unwilling to relent. So we’re at a stalemate and unable to govern.

While the Republicans continue to fight among themselves, my team and I aren’t going to stop helping the residents of our congressional district. I’m in Congress to serve my community, and we will continue to support our residents with issues they face in their daily lives.

It’s clear we have a lot of work ahead to defend and expand our multi-racial democracy. Will you chip in $5 or more today to help fight against rising authoritarianism and fascism?

Thank you so much for being by my side.

Always serving you,

Rashida