In the last week, we have witnessed incredible attacks on our democracy. Trump/Musk first cut off federal funding and grants, which was clearly unconstitutional. It was widely unpopular and stopped in court. Trump/Musk now have control of the personnel file system for all federal workers and are encouraging them to “resign”. It is not clear if these resignations are legal (probably not ) and how they will debilitate the federal government in administration of our laws. Further, Trump/Musk have control over the federal payment systems–like Social Security and Veterans Benefits– which include private financial data on all U.S. taxpayers.
In the meantime, the Senate is weighing in on the nomination of Russell Vought, the co-author of Project 2025, for the head of Office of Management and Budget, the agency that has enormous authority over the expenditure of federal funds.
It’s time for Senate Democrats to play “hardball”.
Activists are gathering at Senator Schumer’s Peekskill office on Tuesday, February 4, at 12:30pm to ask the following:
1. Senator Schumer must vote “no” on the Vought nomination and whip all other Democrats to vote “no”.
2. Senator Schumer, as leader of the Democrats, must refuse to cooperate in the operation of Senate business—refuse to agree to “regular order”. That means: deny a quorum, block unanimous consent, max out debate time, delay and disrupt, blanket opposition, no business as usual–until further notice. (These actions are from the Mitch McConnell playbook that was used to try to derail Obamacare in 2009-2010.)
We are in a constitutional crisis. We need to keep up the pressure on our elected representatives so that they know we have their back and they will fight along side us. Democracy is not a spectator sport!