this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2025

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Call your senator and tell them to vote NO on Republican's horrible cuts. The vote is tomorrow (Friday) morning. It can be blocked despite Schumer (see post body) (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Call your senators, they can still block this despite Schumers push. The vote is tomorrow. If all republican vote for it, they need 7 dems. 8 with Rand Paul who has said he’ll vote no. (Republicans are not using reconciliation so it needs the the filibuster)

Many senate dems are publicly coming out against voting for cloture (meaning they won’t vote to let it get through the filibuster). As of what I last read, around 11 dems are thought to potentially vote to let it pass filibuster. Most of those are still not sure. We only need a handful more of those to become noes and it will get blocked. Some yeses have flipped to noes because of public pressure. We cannot let up now

Link to find direct numbers your senators

https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm

Or call the capitol switch board (202) 224-3121

House dems are publicly telling the senate not to do this (and it’s not just AOC on this - it’s quite a few of them). Earlier read that 7 Dem state AGs are saying the same. Federal worker unions are telling senate dems not do this. Keep the pressure up

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Well rip, 9 senators did not get called and the cloture is passed :(

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 days ago (1 children)

AOC needs to crack the hold of the boomer, business class on the Democratic Party.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

House dems are pissed enough at senate dems right now that she actually might be able to move up. This is the ideal moment for outside leverage where people within the system are pissed off

What we're hearing: House Democrats' text chains lit up Thursday night with expressions of blinding anger, according to numerous lawmakers who described the conversations on the condition of anonymity.

"People are PISSED," one House Democrat told Axios in a text message. Several members — including moderates — have begun voicing support for a primary challenge to Schumer, floating Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) as possible candidates, three House Democrats said.

One lawmaker even vowed at the House Democratic retreat to "write a check tonight" supporting Ocasio-Cortez, said the senior House Democrat

https://www.axios.com/2025/03/14/house-democrats-angry-chuck-schumer-shutdown

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago

Another good quote:

"I don't think they knew who Chuck Schumer was before today," the lawmaker said. "But they know now and they hate him."

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago

Also an option to fax them if their voicemails are off: https://faxzero.com/fax_senate.php

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

do they really take calls from random people?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

You speak to assistants who take down your call. The senator gets a rundown of how many calls and what the subjects were.

[+] [email protected] -18 points 2 days ago (2 children)

No one is calling anyone, and none of them are picking up their phones.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

You've clearly never called your representative, for any reason. So please stop talking as if you know what you're taking about.

Representatives have staff. Those people take calls - any call, from anyone. They're taught and instructed to record constituents opinions on issues like this. You can call, and rant at them for a half hour, and what they're going to record is incrementing a "no on cloture" tick. When you call about these things, the easiest thing for everyone is to clearly state which issue you're calling about, and how you want them to vote, because that's all the staffer is going to record anyway. The representative gets a summary of how many people voiced opinions about which items of legislature.

There's even a formula: each phone call represents X thousand people who didn't bother to call but probably agree with the caller. Each email represents Y tens of people. It's based on how probable or hard it is to contact them.

Now, if you call your rep and want them to, say, work to get Iran to release your kid who went there on holiday and got themselves arrested, then things work a bit differently, and slowly. But the rep will still get the message.

These sorts of calls are statistics and absolutely influence your representatives. They're what balances the scales, on the other side is usually special interests and quid-pro-quo money that is illegal but it's never prosecuted because it's almost impossible to prove.

Voting, and this, is your civic duty. Even if your rep is of the other party - especially in these cases - it's important to call: you are a voice representing many voters who are too fucking lazy to dial their fucking cell phones, and representatives know this.

What you say is true for online petitions. There's no evidence these are anything more than email-gathering mechanisms for spam generators, our that they have any effect - but "calling your representative" is "calling your representative's staffers" and it makes a difference.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 day ago

Good luck with that.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Leave voicemails, those matter too when they see them in the morning

This is about volume of calls. That's what they tally

[+] [email protected] -6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Call volume doesn’t indicate the opinion of the constituents, just that they called. I mean this with no disrespect, but if you have not looked around for a while you may have missed that very few politicians give a fuck about people think anymore

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I mean that they tally support / oppose issue in volume. Congressional staffers do note that calls matter in terms of people's votes. They are used a proxy for the opinions of constituents and also how strongly people hold those beliefs. Whether or not that's fair is a different question. Republicans have historically been waaaay better than leftists about flooding the phone, but the large backlash here is starting to have an impact.

Some of the senators have switched their pledged vote in large part due to the calls. For instance, Tim Kaine went from actively encouraging others to vote in favor of letting it pass the filibuster to now being a hard no against it

Plus other dems in congress are deeply pissed about it on the house side. The larger the number of calls the more ammo they have to senate dems. This is the kind of ideal situation for outside voices mattering - when people within the system are pissed with you

What we’re hearing: House Democrats’ text chains lit up Thursday night with expressions of blinding anger, according to numerous lawmakers who described the conversations on the condition of anonymity.

“People are PISSED,” one House Democrat told Axios in a text message. Several members — including moderates — have begun voicing support for a primary challenge to Schumer, floating Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) as possible candidates, three House Democrats said.

One lawmaker even vowed at the House Democratic retreat to “write a check tonight” supporting Ocasio-Cortez, said the senior House Democrat

https://www.axios.com/2025/03/14/house-democrats-angry-chuck-schumer-shutdown

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Showing up at their door matters.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

That's even better certainly. Showing up and protesting outside their office or someplace they can see is great

But the vote is in the morning, so I imagine most of the people here are not going to be able to show up at such short notice

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

There’s never a bad time to let a politician know that you know where they live, and what their families look like.