An open letter to every Democrat in the next Congress
We're about to hand you power.
Don't waste it.
Send it to one person who'd sign it:
Add your name to the letter.
To Democrats in the next Congress:
We're about to hand you power. Don't waste it like last time.
In 2021 we gave you the House, the Senate and the White House. Some good bills passed. Then too much of the next two years went to negotiating with people who had already said no. The voting rights bill died in the Senate when two Democratic senators refused to change the rule that blocked it. The bigger child tax credit ran out after one year, and child poverty, by the Census Bureau's broader measure, more than doubled the year after.
This time, do big things. Here's what we want passed:
What we want passed
- Bring prices downtake tariff power back from the president, and ban price gouging and pricing based on your personal data.
- Single-payer healthcareone public plan for everyone, with no premiums and no surprise bills.
- Affordable child care and paid leaveno family pays more than 7% of its income for child care, and every worker gets paid family leave.
- Fund public schools properlyand make pre-K free for every family.
- Build homeslegalize apartment blocks with shops on the ground floor, and grow our cities up instead of out.
- Public powerfor lower electric bills, with one national grid and local public utilities.
- End the war with Iranno war without a vote of Congress, and no money for one it never approved.
- Take Congress's power backfrom a president who governs by emergency, and use real oversight.
- Vote by mail everywhere and end Citizens Unitedso elections are easy to vote in and hard to buy.
- End the filibusterso the majority voters elected can pass the laws it ran on.
- Clean up Congressban members from trading stocks, end the debt ceiling standoffs, and add House seats.
- Fix the Supreme Courtadd seats, set 18-year terms, enforce an ethics code, and stop one senator from blocking a judge.
- A pathway to citizenshipfor people who already live and work here, and a legal system that can say yes.
You'll hear that the votes aren't there and the president will veto it. Pass it anyway. Put every bill on the floor and make every member vote. Make the people who say no explain themselves. If a bill gets vetoed, we'll remember who vetoed it, and we'll come back to finish the job.
If some of this has to wait for a new president, run on it in 2028 and win big enough to pass it in 2029.
We're signing our names so you know how many of us are watching.
Do big things.
The signers
Sign it.
After the election this letter, with every name on it, goes to each Democrat in Congress.