August Recess – INDIVISIBLE VENTURA

Today’s good news included the IRS being ordered to hand over Trump’s taxes to Congress and the public exposure of the notes taken during his attempt to bully Georgia into declaring him a winner.

But not good enough. The GOP will just patiently wait out this news cycle or even consider it a welcome distraction from the news they’re hoping we won’t notice…

On August 16, the Census Bureau will release their demographic data, the starting gun for the GOP to quietly and immediately gerrymander away six to 13 seats in the House of Representatives—more than the 5 needed to retake the House in 2022—through its control of the redistricting process in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas alone. The Republican redistricting advantage extends far beyond those four states: They’ll be able to draw 187 congressional districts, compared to 75 for Democrats, and those that elected new legislators like Lucy McBath, the first Black woman to represent old Newt’s district, will be eliminated. We already know that CA will lose a seat, while Texas, Florida, and NC will gain some.

Instead of hanging in their home districts with us, we need our senators to be pushing S.1 – For the People Act through. Some reforms could theoretically wait until after a recess period, but certain key proposals, such as prohibiting partisan gerrymandering, must be enacted now to make a difference in the 2022 elections. Without congressional action in the next few weeks, Republicans could lock Democrats out of power for the next decade, even if voters mobilize and turn out heavily in Democrats’ favor. So, the window to prevent partisan gerrymandering is closing quickly.

Yeah. That’s the real news.

Minimal script for our own senators: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want Sen. [___] to stay in the Capitol to push through “S.1 – For the People Act,” especially the parts prohibiting partisan gerrymandering. I would consider leaving for summer recess a dereliction of duty, as the Census Bureau is releasing fuel for a savage GOP-redistricting on August 16. I and my friends worked hard for Sen. [___]. But unless [he/she] wants to become part of the legislative minority party again, watching helplessly as an actual minority party passes unjust bills and tries to reinstate a fascist president, [he/she] needs to get to work now and stay until it’s done. No excuses. Nothing in [his/her] district is as important as dealing with this issue.

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Action #1: Call your legislators and tell them summer is cancelled.
Action #2: Pelosi, Schumer – Make the call.

Update: 7/28/21 “Senators say they have deal on ‘major issues’ in infrastructure talks.” Haha, no. You go home when it’s passed both houses and signed by Biden, along with a serious voting rights bill, and all the funding legislation that’s pending under deadline.

While it might be amusing to track the various COVID and Critical Race Theory lies that GOP legislators will tell their packed and contagious hometown audiences during August recess, we simply can’t afford the time. We’ve already had a whole administration of opportunity wasted with Donald Trump’s “Groundhog Day-style” promises of “Infrastructure Week!” (aborted attempts listed here and here). Now he’s reaching out and touching those who fear him, threatening to turn them into losers like himself unless they stall the current infrastructure talks with Trump-dsyfunction until after the 2022 elections, more than a year away.

After all, what’s another year of the GOP’s legislative sabotage? Who minds another year of roads buckling under extreme heat, “sun-kinked” railroad tracks, flooded, melting, or inadequate runways and 47,000 bridges in need of urgent repair, with predictions that 1 in 4 U.S. steel bridges will collapse from extreme heat by 2040? (No problem except for those involved in their 171.5 million daily crossings.) And who doesn’t remeber last winter, when 15 million people in Texas were without safe drinking water in the wake of the massive storm, cold snap, and power outages, along with more in Oklahoma, Louisiana, and other hard-hit Southern states.