Tell Members of Congress: The “Deadline for Democracy” is no joke: end the filibuster and pass voting protections now!

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Call Script

My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF. We need you to treat threats against our freedom to vote like the existential emergency that they are:

End the filibuster (for the House members, they do have leverage, if indirect)
Pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and provide federal protections against state legislatures overturning election results (and more)
Expand the federal courts (so that the Supreme Court does not reprise their 2000 fiat ruling against fair elections nor their multiple eviscerations of the Voting Rights Act)
Enact statehood for the District of Columbia

Background

We voted and volunteered our hearts out in 2018 and 2020. "Just vote harder" is an utterly inadequate answer, in fact an insult. Spurred on by Texan Indivisible activists and others, Texas state Democratic legislators are risking arrest (and COVID-19 infection) to stem the tide of Republican oppression that is inevitable without federal action.

Here’s where our congresspeople stand and where they need to be pushed:

Sen. Feinstein has infamously said things like “if democracy were in jeopardy I would want to protect it” but “I don’t see it being in jeopardy right now.” Calls to her office from Indivisible volunteers across the state as well as meetings with her staff, including one in San Diego and one here in SF, may have caused her to issue an updated statement:

Republicans are pushing these [voter suppression] laws under the guise of election security, but the truth is our election systems are already secure and widespread voter fraud simply doesn’t exist. That’s why Congress must pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to ensure all Americans are able to exercise their fundamental right to vote. We must find a path forward on these two bills because the future of our democracy is at stake.

Her staff told us that she is open to changing the filibuster rule and will take Senator Schumer’s direction on it, but she will not lead on it.

Senator Padilla has been strong on ending the filibuster and passing voting rights in his public statements. We can encourage him to refuse to act like it’s business as usual in the Senate and to draw upon his prior experience as California Secretary of State in order to impress upon his colleagues the urgency of action.

House Speaker Pelosi has presided over passage of the For the People Act and other bills. But she has not said that she would use her leverage as Speaker to force a confrontation over ending the filibuster, although she has spoken out against the filibuster in past circumstances. One suggestion is to ask Speaker Pelosi to come out against overly constrained reconciliation bills and insist that bills go through regular order in the Senate, thus forcing a confrontation over the filibuster.

Representative Speier held a “tele-town hall” with prominent filibuster critic Adam Jentleson in late April. As with Speaker Pelosi, we could ask Representative Speier to form a bloc of representatives who are willing to force a filibuster showdown.

Here are some photos from the Oakland Deadline for Democracy rally, which was held on July 7, 2021 and hosted by Indivisible San Francisco and Indivisible East Bay: