March 20, 2024
Protect babies from syphilis, environmental voters, state legislatures, and more!
Contact all members of Congress:
- By phone: (202) 224-3121
- By email: democracy.io
- By US mail: Representatives / Senators
- By fax: Representatives / Senators
- By Resistbot: Resist.bot
Contact White House or other federal agencies:
- HELP GET ENVIRONMENTALISTS TO THE POLLSEnvironmental Voter Project identifies inactive environmentalists and transforms them into consistent voters to build the power of the environmental movement. With behavioral science-informed messaging, they call, canvas, mail, and send digital ads to millions of low-propensity environmental voters each year with just one goal: turning them into better voters. They provide us opportunities to join them by making calls, writing postcards, and canvassing. If this is our area of interest or expertise, let’s check out how we can become part of this effort.
- SYPHILIS IS KILLING BABIES. TELL THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO ACTProPublica reports that syphilis, which is highly treatable, is spreading and killing babies because the drug that cures it is in short supply—and no one, not Pfizer, the only U.S. manufacturer of the drug, nor the U.S. government, is addressing the problem. Let’s share the link to the ProPublica article with the White House and our Members of Congress and tell them to do something about this shameful public health failure. And since Pfizer won’t act, let’s tell our Members of Congress to co-sponsor the Affordable Drug Manufacturing Act (H.R.6607 and S.3398), which would “establish an Office of Drug Manufacturing within the Department of Health and Human Services responsible for manufacturing generic drugs, lowering prices, increasing competition, and addressing drug shortages.” Let’s contact them directly or via ResistBot by texting PEWJGV to 50409 or hitting the sign petition button here.
- INVESTMENT HOUSES GET RICH OFF OF UNDISTRIBUTED DONATIONS WHILE CHARITIES GO BEGGING FOR MONEYAs explained in this recent Boston Globe article, donor-advised funds (DAFs)—which are vehicles for setting aside money for charity—let the affluent get instant charitable tax deductions without actually distributing the funds to real working charities. Meanwhile, investment houses like Fidelity Charitable that administer DAFs are raking in financial management fees. Hundreds of billions of dollars are sitting in DAFs, while total giving to working charities has declined. Let’s tell our members of Congress to enact legal reforms that will ensure that DAF monies are distributed in vastly higher amounts in shorter periods of time so that they benefit those they’re supposed to benefit: the people and causes served by charitable organizations.
- LET’S REMEMBER DOWN-BALLOT VOTINGBack in 2022, the Sister District Project conducted a rare study into the phenomenon of down-ballot roll-off: the tendency of many voters to mark their ballots for top-ticket candidates, like presidents, but skip voting for down-ballot seats, like state legislative offices. The study found that Democratic voters were more likely than Republicans to fail to vote in down-ballot races. Meanwhile, Republicans control 57 state legislative chambers, and Democrats control 41. State legislatures pass laws on voting rights, gun safety, reproductive freedom and justice, education policy, the environment, and so much more. They are often stepping-stones to higher office. Let’s make sure we don’t neglect down-ballot races. We can learn about candidates, register to vote, and update our registrations at Vote411. And we can get election reminders at TurboVote.
