We met with Speaker Pelosi's Staff - here's a report of our meeting!
A delegation of ISF members met with Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s local staff on Friday February 21, 2020. In this meeting, we focused on several topics involving the Speaker’s use of the power of the purse to resist the Trump agenda.
We first discussed the FY2021 Budget. President Trump has submitted a disastrous version of the budget that cuts many important social and medical programs. We urged the Speaker to use the House’s “power of the purse” to emphasize our values. We’ve written about the Power of the Purse before - and we’ve already demanded our Members of Congress to use this leverage to its fullest extent.
We asked that the climate crisis be treated as the true national security emergency that it is by first zeroing out the annual $50 billion year subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, and second eliminating $50 billion allocated for a new generation of nuclear weapons. We argued for repurposing those funds to address the climate emergency by supporting research, subsidizing non-polluting energy sources, mitigating the effects of climate destruction on human habitat, and providing economic support to those affected by the effects of climate change and the measured needed to combat it.
We also spoke about using the power of purse to more effectively exert oversight over specific government agencies by holding oversight hearings and including rule-of-law and checks-and-balances policy requirements in appropriation bills. For example, we required that agencies comply with congressional subpoenas as a condition for receiving funds.
We further discussed the outrageous politicization of the DoJ in in recent weeks and explored how the Power of the Purse might be used as a restraint on Trump and Barr. Doing so, however, poses thorny tactical problems. They pointed out that Senate Republicans are unlikely to support restraints. And that even if some Republicans did so, the odds are that few (if any) of this year’s appropriation bills will be passed before the November election and possibly not until the new congress is seated in 2021. Moreover, tactics we propose for dealing a rogues like Barr have to be assessed in terms of possible precedents they might set in the future regarding Civil Service protections. And also Republican contempt for, and animus towards, government departments and agencies other than Defense.
We also raised the question of why the annual National Intelligence threat assessment for this year has, for the first time, not been publicly released. We urged the speaker to hold a public national threat assessment hearing.
The staff shared with us Pelosi’s remarks on the FY2021 Trump budget, highlighting cuts to Medicaid, Social Security and other programs. They particularly noted the cuts for agencies such as CDC at the height of an international health crisis (corona virus).
Here are the talking points from the staff:
Pelosi’s ripping the SOTUS text was not a planned theatric, but rather meant to alert the nation to the enormous number of lies included in Trump’s speech. While the press has not covered any of the important “for the people” bills passed in the House (and currently awaiting a vote in the Senate which is held up by Moscow Mitch) – many accomplishments touted by Trump in his speech were untrue.
The staff also highlighted that protecting health care and highlighting the anti-corruption work from the House are the main accomplishments which are also driving Dems’ re-election message.
The staff shared with us appropriations victories for SF/California. You can see them at https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/121719-1
In addition, the staff highlighted the “green infrastructure” package put together by Democrats. You can see them at https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/12920-0
Investigations in the House continue – including the upcoming March 10th hearing regarding Russia’s continuing interference in the 2020 US election to help Trump get re-elected.
DOJ investigation will also continue (hearing with Barr upcoming at the end of March).
Finally, the staff asked to spread the word and help with the Census effort by informing the public of its importance and encouraging people to apply for paid positions collecting Census information.