From campaign at mbaysav.org Tue Mar 15 03:03:39 2005 From: campaign at mbaysav.org (Deirdre Des Jardins) Date: Wed Mar 16 03:02:38 2005 Subject: [Mediacorps] Storm Brewing on the Rights of the Minority Party Message-ID: <007b01c5293d$e4681f20$6501a8c0@mbaysav.org> My plea for supporting Harry Reid and Senate Democrats on the coming filibuster firestorm. If you have a piece on this week's major issues -- about one page, with a brief call to action, send it to groups@nationalmediacorps.org Deirdre Des Jardins --------------------------------------- NATIONAL MEDIA CORPS Storm Brewing on the Rights of the Minority Party The right to unlimited debate in the Senate has been with us since the founding of the Republic. Unlimited debate has been used by the minority party as a delaying tactic (a filibuster) since the days of Washington and Jefferson. In 1917, the Senate adopted a rule (Rule 22) that allows Senators to end a debate with a two thirds majority vote - a tactic now known as "cloture." But this is not enough for the Republicans in the current Senate. They don't want unlimited debate - in fact, they don't want any debate at all. They would rather jam bills through after midnight on a Friday, or provide 1500 page budget bills to the press and the minority Democrats with less than 72 hours to the vote. Last year, they tried to hide a provision in the budget bill that would have allowed committee chairs in the House and Senate to get the tax returns of any American from the IRS, with no restrictions on how they used the information. They are going to keep trying to jam provisions like this through Congress and trample our constitutional rights - to privacy, to free speech, and to petition the government for the redress of grievances. They want to start by appointing judges to appellate courts who will make decisions based on politics, and not on laws. We cannot let them continue to destroy our Constitution, our system of checks and balances, and the basis of our democracy. Today, Harry Reid and 37 other Democrats stood in front of the Senate and vowed to shut it down if the right to unlimited debate in the Senate is ended. Make no mistake; this is the most important issue facing our country. We MUST support our Democratic Senators in this stand, or face further erosion of our rights by a party that wants to wipe out all dissent. It is not enough to simply sign a petition, or to donate money. There will be a huge fight over public opinion on this issue, and we must prepare. Please join MoveOn.org and go to a house party - they are leading the fight. Be prepared to write letters, call in to talk radio, make phone calls, or do whatever you can to help sway public opinion. Please also with MoveOn on their National Call In Day tomorrow and call your Senators about the filibuster / judicial nominations. You can find your Senator's contact information here: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm The only Democratic senators who are not standing with Harry Reid are Joe Lieberman (D-Connecticut) and Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) Lincoln Chafee (R-Rhode Island) has said that he will not support the vote to end unlimited debate. Deirdre Des Jardins National Media Corps -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sources: MSNBC -- Reid Threatens Partial Shutdown Senate.gov -- Filibuster and Cloture -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/mediacorps_nationalmediacorps.org/attachments/20050315/0462d76b/attachment.htm