September Educate Congress
There are two letters available for delivery this month. The first letter only address the Trans-Pacific Partnership because we expect that it will come up for a vote during the lame duck session in November. We want to make certain that our Senators and Representatives know how much we are against this corporate give-away.
The second letter addresses both TPP and voting and is only for the House. Because this is a Federal election year we want to call attention to the fact that voting is still a privilege in the US and NOT a right and based on what we saw during the primary election, we need to drastically change our voting equipment. The second letter is for the House only and includes opposition to the TPP, HJ Res 25 - Constitutional Right to Vote (Pocan) and two new bills by Rep. Hank Johnson that address the issue of lax security in our voting system as well as voter purges.
The Election Infrastructure and Security Promotion Act of 2016 calls on the Department of Homeland Security to designate our election equipment as critical infrastructure including it in the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act. Currently only a few vendors engage in voting machine development; this bill will also require future developments be open source. The Election Integrity Act of 2016 requires any new voting systems purchased must provide durable voter-verified paper ballots, establishes guidelines for the publication of voter purge lists and a process by which individuals can challenge their placement on a purge list. The Election Integrity Act also requires a mandatory response by the Attorney General for allegations of voter suppression and intimidation.
As you probably know, President Obama wants the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to be his legacy, but he will only ask for a vote if he thinks he can win. That’s why I’m asking you, as your constituent andas an economic stakeholder in this district, to make sure TPP does NOTcome up for a House vote before he leaves office in January—or if it does, to vote no and urge your colleagues to do the same.
We have delivered many letters to Congress regarding the TPP that addressed the progressive point of view; since the majority of Congress members are not progressive, we have created the September letter addressing conservative talking points making the case that TPP is bad for small business.