Actions for the Week of 6/8/25

Written By Darbie Maccubbin

How to contact your elected officials

Use this link to find contact information for ALL of your elected officials – Federal, State, City, and County – just by entering your address: https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials

Other useful links:

Protect Voting Rights and Religious Freedom, Reject Joshua Divine Nomination

(adapted from Joe Katz at Rogans’s List 6/3)

The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding hearings on Trump’s first slate of judicial nominees this term. It’s a group of extremists who will put their loyalty to Trump above the law and the Constitution.

One of the more glaring examples is his pick of Joshua Divine as a district court judge in Missouri. Divine’s main qualification seems to be that he sought to file a lawsuit on Missouri’s behalf blocking New York from prosecuting Trump. He has also defended a Missouri law that tried to circumvent all federal gun violence protections and defended attacks on gender-affirming care and abortion rights. Most alarmingly, Divine wrote opinion pieces arguing that Christians are “ethically obliged to impose their beliefs on others” and that people should be required to take literacy tests to be allowed to exercise their right to vote.

Call or email your senators and tell them to reject this nominee. Write your own script or use this one:

Joshua Divine must be rejected from a lifetime appointment as a federal judge. His history of supporting government interference with our basic health care decisions is indefensible. His belief that Christians have an ethical responsibility to force their views on others can’t be squared with a judge’s responsibility to uphold religious freedom. And his endorsement of Jim Crow-era voter suppression tactics like literacy tests is completely disqualifying. I expect the Senator to vote no on his nomination to protect our democratic rights and religious freedom. Thank you.

Byrd Baths and a Chance to Kill Some of the Billionaire Bailout Bill

(adapted from Joe Katz at Rogan’s List 6/2 and Jessica Craven at Chop Wood Carry Water 6/2)

The big, ugly budget bill passed the House and will now be taken up by the Senate. Among the issues at stake are which provisions won’t survive a Byrd bath, a challenge under the rule that everything in a budget reconciliation bill must be directly related to fiscal matters. Among key measures that we might be able to use this step to stop are the effort to strip judges of the power to hold Trump officials in contempt of court, the inclusion of a massive expansion of congressional power to roll back federal rules, the 10-year ban on state-level regulation of AI, attacks on gender-affirming care, defunding Planned Parenthood, speeding up fossil fuel projects, and allowing the purchase of gun suppressors without registration.

Normally in these challenges any senator can raise a point of order and the Senate parliamentarian’s ruling is the final call, but there are no guarantees the GOP will choose to respect that process.

Call or email your senators this week. If they’re Democrats urge them to use Byrd rule challenges frequently and aggressively to get as many catastrophic changes out of this bill as possible. If they’re Republicans, demand they obey the law and follow the parliamentarian, and warn that there will be long-term consequences if they do not. Write your own scripts or use the following:

[If Democrat]: 

I want the Democrats to ask for a so-called “Byrd bath” for every single provision in the reconciliation budget bill that they can. First, so many of the provisions clearly don’t belong in a reconciliation bill and should be stripped out under Byrd, and second, Democrats’ one job right now should be to slow down this process in every way possible. Don’t make ANYTHING easy for Republicans. Delay, block, and call them out on everything, please. Thanks.

[If GOP]:

I strongly oppose the awful budget legislation passed by the House and expect the Senator to as well. Cutting aid for the poorest Americans to give tax cuts to the wealthiest individuals and corporations is repugnant. Adding $4 trillion to our debt—and this bill will, no matter how Republicans try to pretend otherwise—is unbelievably irresponsible. Also, I’m hearing rumors that Republicans may ignore the Parliamentarian if she rules that certain provisions violate the Byrd rule. If that happens, I will encourage Democrats to do the same when they regain power, and to use reconciliation to pass every bit of liberal legislation they can dream of. What goes around comes around. Thanks.

Reinstate Contracts for Development of Bird Flu Vaccine

Robert Kennedy Jr., Health and Human Services Director and vaccine skeptic with no medical or scientific training  cancelled more than $700 million in contracts to Moderna to develop a human vaccine against bird flu, undermining efforts to prepare for potential future outbreaks. Follow this link to sign a petition demanding that this short-sighted decision be reversed: Bird Flu Vaccine Petition

Darbie Maccubbin
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