End the Shutdown -- No Wall!
Senator Dianne Feinstein
SF Office: (415) 393-0707
DC Office: (202) 224-3841
LA Office: (310) 914-7300
Fresno Office: (559) 485-7430
San Diego Office: (619) 231-9712
If you can't get through to one office, try another. There is no benefit to calling one office over another. Leaving a voicemail is as good as reaching a live person.
Senator Kamala Harris
SF Office: (415) 981-9369
DC Office: (202) 224-3553
Sacramento Office: (916) 448-2787
LA Office: (213) 894-5000
San Diego Office: (619) 239-3884
Call the SF office first, but try the other offices if you can’t get through. If you can’t get a live person, leave a voicemail and also send a follow-up email written in your own words.
Note: only one of the following two Congresswomen represents you. To find out which one, click here.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi
SF Office: (415) 556-4862
DC Office: (202) 225-4965
Call the SF office first, but try the DC office if you can’t get through. If you get voicemail, hang up and try a few more times to talk to a real person. Don’t give up! Short direct messages are most effective.
Rep. Jackie Speier
San Mateo Office: (650) 342-0300
DC Office: (202) 225-3531
Keep calling if you don’t get through. Voicemails are logged daily into a central report across offices.
Call Script
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF.
I want to thank you for standing firm against the Trump/Republican border wall. In league with Republican Party leaders, Trump is using 800,000 federal workers as economic hostages to force funding of a border wall that a clear majority of Americans oppose. Don't give in to their economic terrorism. Stand strong -- No Wall!
[addition for Senate only] I urge you to use every parliamentary tool to slow down and block all Senate business until Republicans reopen the government. So long as the government is prevented from serving the American people the Senate should not be allow to serve the Republican Party's political agenda.
Background:
As the government shut down drags on, federal workers are going unpaid and federal services are languishing. Members of congress, both Democratic and Republican, are under enormous pressure to reopen to government. Republicans have not made any moves to prevent Trump from holding the government hostage over funding for a border wall.
Trump and the Republican leadership have made plain that their wall is not about creating effective, just, and humane border security policies. Their clear purpose is to symbolize and institutionalize naked bigotry, racism, and hate. Their goal is to replace the American dream of "_Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free_" with white nationalism and white supremacy.
We need our MoC’s to stand firm against the pressure to give in to Trump and the Republicans’ hostage-taking behavior.
Continuing Resolutions
The federal government’s funding runs from October 1st through September 30th of the following year. This is called the fiscal year. If September 30th comes and Congress hasn’t passed all of its appropriations bills, some portions of the federal government (or all of it) shuts down until they get their act together.
If Congress is taking too long and the September 30th deadline is looming, MoC’s can give themselves an extension called a continuing resolution (or “CR”), maintaining current funding levels until they can actually pass spending bills. That is what they did this year, extending funding until December 21.
CRs, like any spending bills, are magnets for poisonous policy riders—often-nasty amendments that members try to attach to spending bills, both to enact bad policy and to obstruct the appropriations process.
Learn more about Continuing Resolutions and poisonous policy riders.
Funding Bill
Congress has a choice to make. Right now, Democrats have two options on the table: help pass a full year of funding for DHS with at least $1.6 billion for the wall and enforcement, OR refuse to pass anything but a funding bill that keeps the government running and has no new funding for the wall and enforcement. They should make sure Trump’s shutdown showdown strategy is not rewarded with the building of his costly, unnecessary wall and instead pass a funding bill with no new funding.