Summary: tell Georgia legislative leaders to stop suppressing the vote; tell your U.S. Senators to protect stimulus checks from debt collectors, pass the For the People Act, pass the Voting Rights Advancement Act, pass the Equality Act, and get rid of the legislative filibuster. Use the tools in the upper-right corner of this page (or, if you're on a cellphone, the bottom of this page) to find phone numbers for your Congressfolk; phone numbers for Georgia legislative leaders will be provided below. Also, I will provide (when I have them) links for petitions and/or email tools below, if you prefer these to making phone calls.
First things first: in Georgia, SB 202 somehow ballooned from a two-page bill concerned with a minor point about absentee ballots into a 93-page bill a mere hour before the state House met to consider it! SB 202 now aims to limit early voting, make folks produce more ID, and prevent people from giving you a glass of water when you've been in line to vote for eight hours, among other nefarious works. Thus the Georgia legislature signals they know they've lost the argument and they're just trying to jam their will down your throat while they can. Georgia House Speaker David Ralston's phone number is 404.656.5020, while Senate Majority Leader Mike Dugan's phone number is 404.656.7872; call them and tell them to stop suppressing the vote in Georgia.
Late last week, Republican Sen. Pat Toomey scuttled legislation protecting our stimulus checks from debt collectors. So why didn't this happen with the last two stimulus checks? Because Sen. Toomey and most other Republicans voted to protect those checks! I wonder what changed between now and then. Sen. Toomey intones that debt collectors have "valid legal claims" (which, like, they didn't the last two times?) and anyway Democrats should have tried to work with Republicans (which, like, waaaaaaaah). You get a stimulus check so you can stimulate the economy, hence the name, and you can't stimulate the economy with it if someone's already taken it from you. So call your Senators and tell them to fix this.
Also up for consideration: H.R. 1, the For the People Act, which you know is a good bill because Republicans tell the most hysterical lies about it! Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, as you know, suggested that H.R. 1 would lead to people giving out cocaine to voters as a bribe! For your reference, cocaine remains a Schedule II drug, meaning it's illegal, meaning that, no, H.R. 1 won't permit people to hand it out to voters in line. And Sen. Ted Cruz (E-TX) said the bill would let child molestors vote, though good luck finding that in the bill! So while you have your Senators on the phone, you can tell them to pass H.R. 1, too. (Also, People for the American Way provides a petition supporting the For the People Act.)
The John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is, somehow, not part of the For the People Act, which could mean Democrats think they'll pass it more easily, but they haven't re-introduced it in this Congress, either. The Voting Rights Advancement Act would make the Voting Rights Act whole again by subjecting, to Justice Department scrutiny, voting rights changes from any state or locality with a record of vote suppression, not just Southern ones (which formed the core of our Supreme Court's objection in its Shelby County v. Holder ruling). So add that to your phone call with your Senators. (Public Citizen also provides a petition supporting the Voting Rights Advancement Act.)
You can also tell your Senators to pass H.R. 5, the Equality Act. Word on the street is that right-wingers are calling their Senators en masse, no doubt with fever dreams of men changing gender just to make far less money playing women's sports and transgender folks raping kids in bathrooms when kids are far more likely to be raped by a relative and not in a bathroom. It'd be nice to counter right-wing hysteria with a more sober recounting of things the Equality Act would end, things like banks refusing to lend to gays and landlords refusing to rent to gays, actual things that actually happen, and which shouldn't happen, even if banks and landlords believe in Jesus very, very hard. (People for the American Way also provides a petition supporting the Equality Act.)
Finally, pursuant to all of the goals described above, you can tell your Senators (this won't be that long a phone call, really!) to end the legislative filibuster. (People for the American Way provides a petition for that, too.) Yes, I can list things the filibuster has saved (the Estate Tax, for one) just as well as anyone else, but the filibuster isn't a break-glass thing anymore, but a tool Republicans flat-out abuse -- except when they want to get something done, like the Gorsuch Supreme Court nomination in 2017! Last week President Biden said he thinks the filibuster should be a talking filibuster, so we're moving our leaders in our direction; that only means we have to keep up the pressure.
OK, so I'm getting more good action alerts these days than ever before, hence I'm packing more action alerts into shorter paragraphs. The summary bit at the beginning wasn't part of that thought process, but I'm glad to come up with it anyway; I think it'll make these action posts a bit more digestible, even as there'll be more to digest.
Comments