Tomorrow, House Democrats are going to take another shot at restoring extended unemployment benefits. Take a moment, now, Contact your Representatives, & let each of them know just how important it is. We can't afford to let up.
Short version: Congress is going to try to use a discharge petition -- "one of the few tools at the minority party's disposal to push the majority party to hold votes on items it doesn't want to advance" -- to force a vote. We can't just sit back, and hope that it works. Pick up the phone, let 'em know where we stand, and keep the pressure on.
The Huffington Post has the details here:
WASHINGTON -- Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives will try to restore long-term unemployment insurance to 2 million workers using a rare parliamentary maneuver on Wednesday.
The procedural move, called a discharge petition, requires a majority of House members to sign on in support of discharging a bill from committee that has otherwise stalled. Democrats were unable to hit the threshold needed -- 218 votes -- for another recent discharge petition on minimum wage legislation, so it's unlikely they'll succeed with unemployment benefits.
The link
here goes to the Contact.gov site, where you can find contact details for your Congressman & Senators if you don't already have them handy. It's a travesty that this has gone on so long. Maybe, just maybe, a big enough outcry will make the difference. Let's light up their switchboards.
Laura Clawson posted an excellent piece on this this morning, here