Tell your Senators - Defend and Improve the HEROES Act in the Senate
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. Hate the phone? Resistbot is your friend.
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. 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.
I support the HEROES Act passed by the House last Friday. Now that this legislation is before the Senate, I urge the Senator to do everything in her power to defend its provisions, prevent them from being watered down, and insist that the Senate vote on it.
I also urge her to improve it by:
1. Replacing the one-time-check/ tax-credit with regular relief payments to individuals, or Rep. Jayapal's “Paycheck Guarantee Act,” or the Hawley-Gardner “Rehire America” proposal.
2. Rejecting blanket immunity for businesses from health and safety liability regardless of their actual culpability. Businesses that protect their employees and customers must not be placed at a competitive disadvantage by those who feel free to cut corners because they have been granted federal immunity from legal action when they ignore health/safety regulations and guidelines.
3. Strengthening oversight to ensure fair and equal administration of programs and distribution of benefits.
4. Strengthening whistleblower protection for those who report fraud, discrimination, and misappropriation.
Background
Last Friday, in a close, and hotly-contested vote, the House passed the HEROES Act to immediately take long-needed steps to counter the pandemic and provide emergency economic-relief to those who desperately need it. Republicans unanimously voted against the Act as did half a dozen moderate Democrats who felt it went too far and a roughly equal number of progressive democrats who felt it did not go far enough. Previously known as “Phase-4” and “CARES2,” the Act contains many of the provisions that we in Indivisible fought so hard for. The inclusion of those provisions is a significant victory for grassroots activism like ours. The Act also contains steps in the right direction that need to be bolder and go farther, and regretfully, some corporate giveaways and special benefits for the ultra-wealthy.
The HEROES Act now goes to the Senate where Republican leader “Moscow Mitch” McConnell has declared it “Dead on Arrival” (and Trump has boasted that he intends to veto it). We face a hard fight ahead. Republicans will try to stall and slow-walk it to death. If we manage to force a debate and vote, they will attempt to defeat the Act outright, and failing that to weaken and water it down while loading it up with corporate-welfare and more tax-breaks for billionaires. But we need to do more than just defend the bill that was passed by the House, we need to improve it so that it adequately meets the needs of the crises we face.
This fight for our health and economic future begins this week with each of us telling our two Senators: “Defend and improve the HEROES Act.”
The HEROES Act is more than 1800 pages long. It's 20 Divisions contain almost 70 “titles” each of which is the equivalent of a separate federal law. Among its huge array of provisions and clauses some of the most significant can be divided into the Good, the Inadequate, the Bad, and the Ugly:
THE GOOD
$1 trillion to state and local governments
$200 billion hazard-pay for essential workers
$75 billion for testing, tracing, quarantine, treatment, & hospitals.
Expanding the Payroll Protection Program to minorities & nonprofits Extending enhanced unemployment benefits to Jan 2021
Increasing SNAP & other food & nutrition assistance Providing services and benefits to all regardless of their immigration status
THE INADEQUATE
One-time $1200-$6000 payments to individuals & families rather than reliable income
Improved, but still inadequate worker safety & whistle blower protection
Some mortgage and rent aid (but no moratorium on foreclosures or evictions)
Some help regarding student debt (but enough and not forgiveness)
Some additional resources to safeguard elections (but not enough) Some additional resources to support the census (but not enough)
Some additional funds to preserve the Postal Service (but not enough)
THE BAD
No Medicare-for-all or paying non-COVID healthcare costs of those without insurance
No major green infrastructure initiative.
No public ownership stake in companies that are bailed out.
No prohibition of corporate mergers or other corporate limitations.
THE UGLY
Lobbyists got themselves made eligible for the Payroll Protection Program.
More tax breaks for the wealthy
No repeal of Trump's huge real estate tax break
COBRA extension that needlessly subsidizes health insurance companies