Keep up the pressure on Senator Feinstein to end the filibuster!
Call Senator Feinstein!
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Call Script
NOTE: Please call/send ONE of the messages below to Feinstein EACH DAY about a different bill that is faced with death-by-filibuster in the Senate.
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF. America needs S1, the For the People Act for ballot access, election integrity and ethics in government. To save it from being killed, please do everything you can to end or reform the filibuster.
or
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF. America needs HR4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which restores & strengthens Voting Rights Act. To save it from being killed, please do everything you can to end or reform the filibuster.
or
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF. America needs HR5, the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity. To save it from being killed in the Senate, please do everything you can to end or reform the filibuster.
or
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF. America needs HR.6, the American Dream and Promise Act, which provides dreamers with a path to receive permanent resident status
or
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF. America needs HR8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, which requires background checks for private gun sales. To save it from being killed in the Senate, please do everything you can to end or reform the filibuster.
or
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF. America needs HR842, the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which expands & defends workers rights to organize unions. To save it from being killed in the Senate, please do everything you can to end or reform the filibuster.
or
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF. America needs HR1280, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act which holds cops accountable for misconduct in court. To save it from being killed in the Senate, please do everything you can to end or reform the filibuster.
or
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF. America needs HR1603, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act which legalizes and provides some protections for farm workers under the H2A "Guestworker" program.
or
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF. America needs HR1620, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, which renews and expands the Violence Against Women Act that expired in 2019 due to Republican opposition.
Background
As an organization, Indivisible calls for the complete abolition of the filibuster. Ending or changing the filibuster will require the votes of all 50 Democratic senators and the political support of President Biden. At the moment, Biden, Feinstein, and some other Democratic senators are apparently still unwilling to abolish the filibuster entirely, but they’ve indicated that they may be open to reforming it. While filibuster reform is a half-measure, if that’s all that can be achieved now it would still be a significant victory. And once the filibuster is reformed as a first step, if Republicans still use a reformed-filibuster to kill essential legislation abolishing it entirely as a second step will be easier to win.
A number of different filibuster-reform ideas have been proposed. The two that have been talked about the most are:
Making it harder to filibuster. For example, return to the old-style “talking” filibuster as President Biden recently suggested. As it is now under the Republican rules, almost every piece of legislation is subject to death-by-filibuster with a simple statement. Making it harder to filibuster would mean more legislation could be moved through the Senate. But Republicans would still be able to kill measures that they really hate like the “For the People” voting-rights act.
Add new kinds of legislative exemptions. Some kinds of legislation cannot be filibustered, such as Congressional Review Act items. Those categories could be expanded to include measures to implement a presidentially-declared national emergency and measures regarding fundamental democracy such as voting rights. But carving out more exemptions would still leave most Senate business subject to anti-democratic majority-rule filibuster.
We may achieve either of these or even a full abolition, but to do this we must continue pressuring our Senators.
Led by Mitch McConnell, Senate Republicans have made it crystal clear they intend to use the filibuster to kill everything passed by Democrats in the House. Only two or three bills can be rescued from filibuster-death through parliamentary maneuvers such as “Reconciliation” – all the rest are doomed to die in the Senate unless the filibuster is ended or reformed.
For the first time in decades, public support is building to end the filibuster and so too is congressional momentum. Now is the time to maintain a constant drumbeat of constituent-input to our senators on this issue.
Senator Padilla is already with us, but Feinstein is on the fence. She needs to hear from us day in and day out. This week’s San Francisco Chronicle urged Senator Feinstein to pick a side, and 70 Indivisible chapters and allied groups in California signed a letter to Senator Feinstein asking her to commit to voting to end the filibuster.
This week’s list of the good and necessary bills that have been passed by the House but now face filibuster-death in the Senate are:
HR.1, now S.1: For the People Act, which protects ballot access & election integrity, requires ethics in government, monitors campaign (passed the House 3/3/2021)
HR.5: Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity (passed the House 2/25/2021)
HR.8: Bipartisan Background Checks Act, which increases background check for private gun sales (passed the House 3/11/2021)
HR.842: Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO), which expands and defends workers rights to organize unions (passed the House 3/9/2021)
HR.1280: George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which holds law enforcement accountable for misconduct in court, improves transparency, and reforms police training and policies (passed the House 3/3/2021)
As the House passes new bills that serve the interests of We the People and they are sent to the Senate for action, they will be added to the Senate Deathwatch list here.
Each day that you can, please pick one bill from that list and – using your own words – send a brief one or two sentence message to your senators linking that bill to ending or reforming the filibuster.
The filibuster requires a bill to have a super-majority of 60 votes in order to pass -- rather than the simple majority that House bills require.
The filibuster is not -- and never was -- part of the Constitution. It was created by accident when the Senate revised its rules in 1805 and inadvertently eliminated the procedures for ending debate and forcing a vote on the matter at hand. No one realized the filibuster existed or tried to use for more than 30 years -- until southern senators discovered its power to block legislation that might limit slavery. After the Civil War it was used to preserve Jim Crow segregation, deny voting rights to nonwhites, block economic justice and environmental protection measures, and retain the Electoral College. Not only has legislation been blocked, but for more than a century the threat of a filibuster has intimidated progressives into watering-down, or abandoning entirely, social-justice and economic fairness proposals.
Over the years, the filibuster rule has been amended and revised, but it has always remained as an effective weapon that those in power could use to block, delay, or weaken expansion of civil and voting rights, corporate regulation, and environment protection. Where once Senate filibusters were rare, now they are so routine that almost every piece of legislation is subject to the filibuster's 60-vote supermajority. But through use of the “Nuclear Option” parliamentary maneuver, the filibuster rule can be revoked or altered by a simple majority of senators voting -- if the Democratic majority hang together and have the political will and the political courage to stand up and do what’s right.
A Brief Political History of the Filibuster
It’s Time for Dianne Feinstein to pick a side on the filibuster, San Francisco Chronicle, March 14, 2021
Press release - Feinstein/filibuster, Indivisible, March 15, 2021
Feinstein sign-on letter, Indivisible chapters and allies, March 15, 2021