- Action #1: Call your senators.
- Action #2: Call the White House
- Action #3: Email Joe.
Action #1: Call your senators.
Action #2: Call the White House
Minimal script: President Biden said we’re facing “the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War.” He’s right and we need him to use every lever of power and influence at his disposal to persuade the Senate to pass the Freedom To Vote Act, including speaking out against the filibuster.
Contact: 1.202-456-1111 The White House comment line is open Tuesday to Thursday, from 11 am – 3 pm ET. When you reach a staff member, tell them your name and that you are a constituent. Then, demand that President Biden do everything in his power to help overcome the filibuster and pass the Freedom to Vote Act.
Action #3: Email Joe.
SAMPLE script: Joe, you’ve said that we’re facing “the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War.” You’re right.
Manchin cut down John Lewis’s “For the People Act” into a package he thought was small enough that 10 Republicans would vote for it. He was wrong. Trump, along with acolytes like Rep. Cawthorne, who encouraged voters to “lightly threaten” their legislators, have hardened the GOP into an intractable force protecting voter suppression, white supremacy, and Trump’s Big Lie. It is now literally personally and professionally dangerous for them to cross the aisle on a bill like this.
Here’s another hard truth, Joe. We volunteers cannot out-organize nationwide voter suppression. We cannot alter time for voters no longer allowed to vote early during their off-work hours or together on Sunday “Souls to the Polls.” We cannot help them access drop-off boxes that are no longer there. We cannot make DMV’s open near voters without public transit who need IDs. We cannot remove burdensome witness requirements and unfair ballot receipt deadlines. We cannot protect voters from intimidation by partisan poll watchers. We cannot force states to equalize polling place access so that minority voters won’t have take off work and wait in hours-long lines, while voters in White-majority districts walk right into theirs. We cannot undo destructive gerrymandering.
We need you to push Senate Democrats to pass the Freedom To Vote Act with a carve-out of the filibuster. Make it as narrow as you please, but ask them how long any of them will remain in office if their own voters are turned away or intimidated at their polling places or if state legislatures takes over elections. Georgetown University historian Thomas Zimmer explains, “Unless the system is fundamentally democratized, we’ll soon reach the point where it will become impossible to stop America’s slide into authoritarianism through elections.” We are not Hungary yet. Stop this now.
Contact: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Information on the Freedom to Vote Act and resources
The Freedom to Vote Act (S.2747) has replaced the “For the People Act” in the Senate. This bill, which is backed by Stacey Abrams of Fair Fight, makes Election Day a holiday, ends gerrymandering, combats the anti-voting laws working their way through state legislatures, requires states to allow 15 days of early voting (including 2 weekends), massively expands voting access through automatic voter registration and Election Day registration, increase election security by creating a national standard for voter verified paper ballots, implement a national voter ID standard with reasonable alternatives like utility bills or bank statements, requires voting machines be made in the United States, protect nonpartisan election officials from partisan interference, shines a light on dark money, and makes it harder for billionaires and special interests to buy elections. It’s a good start and and Manchin’s reputation, and the future of the filibuster, is also on the line.
- (Brennan Center) Pass the Freedom to Vote Act – Analysis
- (msnbc) The Freedom to Vote Act is Democrats’ final chance to save voting rights
- (from DemCast) Quick Read:
Where we are…
INDIVISIBLE VENTURA 