While You Were Sleeping...
Trump is a master of distraction, but while we’re all focusing on his tweet storms and what position Kellyanne Conway is sitting on sofas in the oval office in, Congress is (as they’ve always been) off doing the business of governing.
HR 861 Terminate the Environmental Protection Agency - The full text (not an abridgement or summary of the multifaceted approach they might take, the entirety of the bill) is that the EPA be terminated on December 31, 2018. Its author has stated in interviews that the current role of the EPA would be farmed out to individual states with no real way to enforce that any of them actually do anything.
HR 899 Terminate the Department of Education - Same approach as HR 861. Makes education the responsibility of the states.
HR 610 Vouchers for Public Education - School vouchers, much to the enjoyment of Secretary Bell Biv DeVos, with the super fun addendum of repealing the nutritional school lunch provisions and removing limits on fat and sodium in the food fed to our nation’s children.
HR 370 Repeal Affordable Care Act - Obviously keep an eye on this one, but I have a feeling that any movement won’t go unnoticed and will be glacially slow, as Trump recently discovered, “Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated.”
HR 354 Defund Planned Parenthood - Completely removes federal funds from an agency that provides much needed healthcare to underserved areas on the contingency that PP no longer provide abortions. Better minds than mine have written extensively on this.
HR 83 Mobilizing Against Sanctuary Cities Bill - halting federal funding for cities who’ve declared they won’t help the federal government deport folks. Not clear on the breadth and depth of the defund, but certainly not a good look for the land of the free.
HR 147 Criminalizing Abortion (“Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act”) - This is my opinion, but while the text appears to criminalize only abortions “motivated by gender, race, or color of child or parent”, it seems like a thinly veiled way to make it easier for people to sue women for receiving or doctors for performing abortions.
HR 808 Sanctions against Iran - I haven’t had time to wade through the full text of this one, but it essentially seems to get us back to pre-nuclear treaty sanctions on Iran contingent on the President’s confirming that they’ve remedied their “ failure to address the risk of terrorist financing “. So essentially it’s up to Trump to decide when Iran is behaving, which...c’mon.
So let’s make some calls. And no, you won’t talk to your representative, you’ll talk to an overworked and underpaid office staff member whose job it is to take down your message and count it among what must be thousands of responses, BUT THAT NUMBER IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE IT DETERMINES HOW THEY’LL VOTE AND HOW MUCH SUPPORT THEY’LL THROW BEHIND OPPOSITION.
Refinery29 breaks down the route to finding your rep:
Just go here or here and input your zip code or state; it will tell you who your elected officials are. Once you have the names, you can find their contact information hereand here.
kianamaiart
pixelskylines
kaledo-art
stormborns
areudirty
