HR1 / S1 discussion with Wyden's office

[Lora Chamberlain]

Hi all,

Dr. Lora here -

just got done with our conversation with Wyden's office.

Bad news - they have no strategy to overcome:

1) 100% Republican obstructionism - filibustering this bill forever

2) Recalcitrant Sinema and Manchin - they had not even heard talk of Al Franken's idea of flipping the vote so that it takes 41 votes to continue a filibuster rather than 60 to stop it. 
Their only strategy is that they think that Manchin and Sinema will tire of the negative press when nothing continues to get done in Congress (so keep the calls going into the offices of both of them).

HR 1 /S1 will only be heard in the Senate Rules Committee - membership is below - Markey seems to be on track to being the sponsor of S1.

So our activism should be focused on Markey and the Senators below in the Rules Committee, (on the Republican side the only ones that I would even waste my time on are Roy Blunt and Capito from WVA - does anyone know any of the other GOP newbies? - it is a waste of oxygen to even bother with McConnell, Cruz, or Shelby - they will be voting NO on anything that promotes voting or decreases cheating that is for certain!)

Wyden is absolutely our champion, he wrote the PAVE Act, which was mostly folded into the SAFE Act, (Klobuchar's bill of 2019).
If HR1 / S1 is blocked and doesn't move in the Senate then Klobuchar will reintroduce the SAFE Act (basically that will be a signal that they are trying to split up HR1 / S1 into components to see if they can pass anything in smaller chunks rather than such a big omnibus bill as it is currently.)

If the SAFE Act is reintroduced it will be into the same Rules Committee - so while you are lobbying the members of the Committee you might as well be proficient in mark ups of the SAFE Act, as well as HR1 / S1.

Committee on Rules and Administration http://www.rules.senate.gov/
Total Members: 18

Majority Members (9)	Minority Members (9)
Klobuchar, Amy (MN), Chairman Feinstein, Dianne (CA) Schumer, Charles E. (NY) Warner, Mark R. (VA) Leahy, Patrick J. (VT) King, Angus S. (ME) Merkley, Jeff (OR) Padilla, Alex (CA) Ossoff, Jon (GA)

[Lora Chamberlain]

Oops the minority members of the Senate Rules Committee did not print out in my email - here they are:
Blunt, Roy (MO), Ranking Member
McConnell, Mitch (KY)
Shelby, Richard C. (AL)
Cruz, Ted (TX)
Capito, Shelley Moore (WV)
Wicker, Roger F. (MS)
Fischer, Deb (NE)
Hyde-Smith, Cindy (MS)
Hagerty, Bill (TN)

Lora

[Randy Moor]

The Green Party tells me that HR1 contains some provisions that seem undemocratic to me if they are correct. I’m wondering if anyone on this list has an opinion on the merits of the Green Party’s criticism.

 

The Green Party says HR1 will:

• Eliminate the limits on donations and expenditures candidates can receive and make — what kind of campaign finance reform is that?
  
• Inflate the amount of money national party committees can give to candidates from $5000 to $100 million, an astonishing increase of 1999900% that would give party bosses virtually unlimited power to flood elections with big money
  
• Abolish the general election campaign block grants that parties can access by winning at least 5% of the vote in the previous presidential election. HR1 will eliminate this provision that was created to give a fair shot to alternative parties that demonstrate significant public support
  
• Replace the general election block grants (where each qualified candidate receives a set, lump sum of public funding for campaign expenses) with matching funds through Election Day — a huge step backwards for public campaign finance reform — using the above-mentioned criteria designed to squeeze out alternative parties and independent candidates

Thanks for any thoughts,

Randy Moor

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