Tuesday 3/20 – Call and remind your legislators that it’s no longer business as usual.

We are not the same people we were in 2016.

The omnibus spending bill must be passed by March 23 to avoid a government shutdown, and may be voted on in the House as early as this week. Although the bill needs bipartisan support to pass, it is bristling with poisonous riders. Make sure your legislators know how important getting this bill cleaned up is to their continuing employment.

Action:

At the minimum, tell our legislators to specifically root out these horrible misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic, corrupt and greedy partisan riders listed below and have them removed.
Ask them to find their bravery again and support the DACA kids, along with refusing the obscene amount of money the administration wants to waste against our immigrant population.
Ask them to propose actions that are actually helpful, such as gun violence prevention funding, removing the Dickey Amendment, shielding our elections and our country’s infrastructure from Russians, protecting Mueller’s investigation from “Friends of Russia”, prohibiting the use of our tax dollars at Trump-owned properties or businesses, and getting the government to actually hand over the already promised financial assistance to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Minimum Script: I’m calling from [zip code] to urge Rep./Sen. [___] to reject all riders to the omnibus spending bill that would threaten the health and rights of women and LGBTQ people, that de-regulate environmental protections, that fund xenophobic immigration policies, and that increase dark money into our elections.

More script if you want it: Add anything from the listing below that particularly interests you.

Twitter Scripts: Click here for state-by-state scripts to send to your legislators.

Contact your Legislator

Rep. Julia Brownley: (CA-26): DC (202) 225-5811, Oxnard (805) 379-1779, T.O. (805) 379-1779
or Rep. Salud Carbajal: (CA-24): DC (202) 225-3601, SB (805) 730-1710 SLO (805) 546-8348
Which one is yours?: www.phoneyourrep.com

Senator Feinstein: DC (202) 224-3841, LA (310) 914-7300, SF (415) 393-0707, SD (619) 231-9712, Fresno (559) 485-7430
and Senator Harris: DC (202) 224-3553, LA (213) 894-5000, SAC (916) 448-2787, Fresno (559) 497-5109, SF (415) 355-9041, SD (619) 239-3884
Other Rep./Senator Contacts: www.phoneyourrep.com

Some of the riders from the Omnibus Spending Bill for your consideration…

Healthcare for women: (Politico)(PFAW.org)

Cutting off federal funding to Planned Parenthood
Eliminating a federal family planning program.
Eliminating the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program.
Prohibiting funding research that uses human fetal tissue obtained after an abortion.
Extends existing harmful restrictions of the Hyde Act on insurance coverage of abortion by banning all multi-state plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) from including such coverage.
Blocking the Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Amendment Act (RHNDAA) that protects employees who work in DC from workplace discrimination based on the employees’ personal reproductive health care decisions, like using in-vitro fertilization or birth control.
Restricting access to abortion for women in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention except in cases of rape, incest, and a very narrow definition of life endangerment and allows any ICE employee to refuse “to perform or facilitate in any way” any abortion.
Reinstating the global gag rule, also known as the Mexico City Policy, a provision that greatly undermines access to health care services around the world by denying foreign organizations U.S. global health assistance if they provide information, referrals, or services for legal abortion or advocate for the legalization of abortion in their country, even if these activities are supported solely with non-U.S. funds.
Prohibiting U.S. contributions to the United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) life-saving maternal and reproductive health services to the poorest communities in more than 150 countries, including those facing humanitarian crises and conflict.

Healthcare for LGBTQ citizens: (PFAW.org)

Riders include sweeping new religious refusal language allowing employers, insurers, and health care providers to deny others access to abortion.

Healthcare: (roll call)

Might include a bipartisan health care plan from Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington for cost-sharing subsidy payments or funds for new state reinsurance programs. Neither option will be given due public or expert input in this appropriations process or a report from the CBO for examination.

Environmental protections for our air, water, land, wildlife and the corruption that goes into allowing it:

There were so many and they were so terrible, we had to break them down into categories.

Environmental War Crimes – Part 1 – Air
Environmental War Crimes – Part 2 – Water
Environmental War Crimes – Part 3 – Land
Environmental War Crimes – Part 4 – Life
Environmental War Crimes – Part 5 – Money

Separation of Church and State:

Why do we have this concept anyway? Hint: A Baptist minister came up with it.

Repeal part of the Johnson Amendment, which limits political activity by tax-exempt churches and nonprofit groups.This language was stripped at the last minute from the GOP’s code overhaul and they’re trying to sneak it in here.

Campaign issues: (roll call)

Blocking a new Securities and Exchange Commission rule requiring public corporations to disclose political contributions to shareholders and continue an existing law barring the use of funds to force federal contractors to disclose political spending.
Relaxing caps on the amount of money that candidates can spend in coordination with their parties for communications. Currently, the candidates and parties can’t use the same vendor for advertising or public relations, but this change would allow them to do so, campaign finance experts said.

Tax Bill “Fixes”: (roll call)

“Fixes” a flaw that allows hedge fund managers to skirt certain rules on carried interest profits by setting up limited liability companies and converting to S corporations, which inadvertently were not subjected to the new requirements in the tax law.
“Fixes” a flaw that puts grain dealers at a competitive disadvantage to agricultural cooperatives.

Immigration and DACA nightmares continue: (message guide)

The Dream Act is not included in the spending bill talks, what is under consideration is the amount of money that will become available to deport them and their families, along with wastage and corruption.
The White House has requested a total of $21.5 billion for ICE and CBP—$2.9 billion over already elevated levels from last year.
$1.6 billion for the wall and $1.1 for other border security infrastructure, which both Democrats and Republicans have criticized as a waste of taxpayer dollars—in addition to $1.8 million for DOJ to create a legal team to seize private property from landowners.
Funding for 500 new Border Patrol agents even though apprehensions at the southern border are at all-time lows and DHS doesn’t meet existing hiring goals because many applicants fail their polygraph tests.
Funding for 1,000 new ICE agents who will terrorize communities—and who are directed to apprehend any undocumented immigrant, even if they are long-time contributing members of the community or have U.S. citizen children.
Funding for 51,379 jail beds for the private prison industry to detain immigrants without addressing documented abuses in these facilities.
70 additional U.S. Attorneys at the Department of Justice (DOJ) to prosecute people for immigration-related offenses even though immigration prosecutions already comprise 52 percent of all federal prosecutions—more than for drugs, weapons, fraud and other violations combined.
Expansion of the failed 287(g) program that has resulted in racial profiling and the criminalization of immigrant communities.