Call your Representatives about the HEROES stimulus bill for COVID-19 relief
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
Email Contact: https://pelosi.house.gov/contact-me/email-me
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. Hate the phone? Resistbot is your friend.
Rep. Jackie Speier
San Mateo Office: (650) 342-0300
DC Office: (202) 225-3531
Email Contact: https://speier.house.gov/email-jackie
Keep calling if you don’t get through. Voicemails are logged daily into a central report across offices. Hate the phone? Resistbot is your friend.
Note: Due to shelter-in-place orders during the Covid-19 emergency, it may be more effective to use email or Resistbot to contact the MoC’s office. It is important to use your own words in emails to elected officials, but feel free to use our sample script below as a guide.
Call Script
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF.
Early reports and summaries of the new HEROES Act are very encouraging, and as a member of Indivisible SF I want to express my broad, overall support for the bill as it has been reported.
However, I urge you to:
1. Provide individuals and families with a reliable income for the duration of the crisis however long that might be. One-time emergency checks are inadequate.
2. Ensure that freelancers, gig-workers, long-term unemployed, and others who are not salary or hourly employees are provided with funds to live on.
3. Include strong language to guarantee that emergency-related provisions and benefits are equally available to all people residing in the U.S. and all of its territories.
4. Establish effective oversight of how funds are spent, compliance with congressional subpoenas, and strong protection for whistleblowers who call attention to fraud, corruption, cronyism, and political interfeance.
Given the inherent complexity of an 1800-page bill, I support the call of the Congressional Progressive Caucus for more time to study and discuss the bill before it is voted on.
Background
On Tuesday, House Democrats unveiled their long-awaited new emergency relief bill. This bill, which weighs in at over 1,800 pages, is the bill that had been identified as “CARES 2”; it now has its own name, the "HEROES Act." It's currently scheduled to be voted on by the House this coming Friday.
We are pleased to see that the brief summary released by Speaker Pelosi appears to include a great many of the provisions we have been asking for. It includes more funding for state and local governments, testing for the COVID-19 virus, the USPS, nutrition assistance, student loan relief, and education, rental and mortgage provisions, according to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. That’s all thanks to your tireless calls, emails, signatures on our open letters, and participation in social media actions!
However, the summary raises some immediate and urgent questions, so we are joining the Congressional Progressive Caucus in asking for more time to analyze and discuss the bill before it is voted on. We want to make sure that the bill implements continuous financial relief for individuals, not just another one-time check. And we want to ensure that the benefits are available to all people in the US—regardless of race, gender, immigration status, employment status, the political leanings of their state, or their residence in US territories rather than states.
Call your Representatives, thank them for their initiative on this bill, and ask them to include the above provisions and give time for progressive groups to study the bill before it is voted on.
Democrats’ $3 trillion opening bid for the next stimulus package, explained, Vox 5/12/20
House to vote Friday on coronavirus relief, proxy voting rule, Roll Call 5/12/20
Progressive lawmakers want Pelosi to postpone vote on $3T relief package, The Hill 5/12/20