May 6, 2020

Dear Colorado Members of Congress and Senators,

We are your constituents in Colorado, and represent thousands of members
of Colorado Indivisible groups. The undersigned groups and individuals are united in calling for you, as our state's delegation, to ensure that any future coronavirus response legislation protects our democracy and our health, and puts people’s needs over corporate profits. We urge you to vote against any bill unless it does so.

We recognize that the CARES Act included key supports for working and poor people due to improvements made during the course of negotiations. The significant expansion of unemployment insurance, direct cash assistance, and financial support for states included in this legislation will help people weather the beginning of the outbreak and the accompanying recession, which has already cost over 800 Coloradans their lives and at least 22 million Americans their jobs.

However, given the scale of this crisis and the myriad threats it poses to people’s physical and financial health, it’s clear that people will need significantly more support from the federal government in the coming months. As Colorado residents and grassroots Indivisible members, we urge you to fight for a fourth coronavirus package that focuses on the needs of the people -- not corporations. We ask that the following principles guide the next coronavirus relief package:

1. Keep people on payrolls: Stop mass layoffs and preserve employment relationships for all businesses, including small businesses. Ensure federal dollars go to workers and small businesses, not enriching CEOs and Wall Street.
2. Provide financial relief: Expand aid for the most vulnerable, including direct cash assistance, increased food aid, debt relief, and eviction protections.
3. Protect public health: Full health coverage for all COVID-19 care and protections for all frontline workers.
4. Defend elections: Enact a vote-by-mail requirement for 2020 federal elections while maintaining access to in-person voting for those who do not have access to mail voting.

Congress must ensure the next package provides relief to every person in this country, regardless of tax or immigration status, age or disability.

The coronavirus has touched every facet of our lives, and the choices Congress makes now will shape the recovery for decades to come. We can flatten the curve of infections — saving tens of thousands of lives — by ensuring that workers have the protective equipment and financial safety net they need. We can ensure the integrity of our democracy by investing in nationwide no-excuse mail-in voting, and other voter protection and ballot expansion measures. We can help local economies by rescuing communities and small businesses, while implementing strict requirements on any corporate bailout funds that require them to maintain payroll and invest in their workers instead of handing out big bonuses to their executives or stock buybacks to their shareholders.

Specifically, we urge you to prioritize the following remedies in the next COVID package:
• Support and protection for frontline health care workers, including through hazard pay and an OSHA emergency temporary standard.
• Funding for nationwide vote-by-mail, no-excuse absentee ballots, and election security.
• Full access to COVID-related health care and economic supports for all immigrants, including undocumented, and asylum seekers.
• Universal paid sick and family leave.
• Meaningful monthly cash payments including to individuals aged 16 and over through the end of the crisis.
• A cancellation on rent, mortgages, and evictions for the duration of the crisis.
• Clean water guarantees for all and restoration of water access to those who have been shut off due to non-payment.
• Additional accountability for corporate bailouts, including a requirement that they retain 100% of their employees, and providing this assistance as a loan, not a grant
• Funding for the United States Postal Service or suspension of the requirement that the USPS pre-pay their employee retirement benefits.
• Provide hotel vouchers to the homeless and declare a moratorium on all work requirements for housing.
• Crisis relief for state and local governments.
• Additional funding for the Payroll Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan, along with additional oversight to ensure that funds are reaching the intended beneficiaries.
• Include farms in those businesses that are eligible for the Economic Injury Disaster Loans.

We're learning more every day about the extent to which decisions around testing and distribution of protective equipment have been made to boost the current administration's political fortunes, rather than to protect the people. We ask you, as our congressional representatives and senators, to fight for a relief package that will put people’s needs over corporate profits and demonstrate true leadership in the face of the outbreak.

Sincerely,

[SIGNATURES]