Thanks for Calling

By MUUSJN on Saturday, January 26th, 2019
Our Phone Calls to Senators Helped End Partial Government Shutdown! 
The House and Senate passed & Trump signed a resolution to re-open the government until February 15th


I’m proud to say that our Justice Network was part of a massive effort to tell members of Congress that: 

  • Federal employees should not face payless paydays, forcing them to be unable to put food on their tables or pay their bills because President Trump and members of Congress don’t agree about funding a wall
  •  Women who are victims of rape and domestic violence should not be deprived of shelters and support
  • Provisions to deny immigrant children asylum and make it more difficult to maintain DACA protections were just wrong
  • Low-income families should not face running out of food, eviction from subsidized housing or other safety net services. On January 17th,  when funding for domestic violence shelters was no longer available, the Violence Against Women Act got an 11th hour reprieve. The Department of Justice announced that its offices that distribute VAWA funding would remain open until March 1st. MUUSJN’s Women and LGBTQ Task Force has been advocating to protect this essential funding to protect vulnerable women. 

On Friday, January 25th, Congress and President Trump finally got the message.  We bombarded Senator Mitch McConnell’s office with demands for a vote on a clean bill without anti-immigrant provisions. We urged our own Senators to put pressure on McConnell.   I suspect that when elected officials and their wealthy benefactors experienced delays in flying due to east coast air traffic controllers not showing up for work that too may have had an affect.  The government shutdown became intolerable.  

 The House and the Senate quickly adopted the House’s continuing resolution (HJ Resolution 28) that would keep the government open until February 15th while a team of eight members of Congress were charged with negotiating an agreement on border security as part of a new spending bill for the Homeland Security Department.  Click HERE for information about the branches of the federal government that have been shut down and now are re-opening until February 15th.  

However, this right wing induced budget crisis isn’t over.  President Trump has threatened that if the negotiators don’t secure funds for his wall by the new deadline, he would be forced to shut down the government again or to declare a national “emergency” to attempt to grant the President power to reallocate funding for his wall from other sources. Disaster relief funds for Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas and California have been mentioned.  It would be a dangerous precedent that would surely be challenged in courts.  It would be outrageously immoral.    

 THANK YOU FOR STANDING UP FOR JUSTICE.
Get ready to speak up again. 

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