The new Republican Congress has wasted no time passing godawful legislation, but equally outrageous is the number of Democrats who have voted with them.
Last week, 35 House Democrats voted to gut Wall Street reform which rolls back critical parts of Dodd-Frank—but the Daily Kos activism team sprang into action.
Over 100,000 members have signed our petition denouncing these 35 House Democrats for selling out to Wall Street. Another 6,200 people who live in one of the 35 districts gave their congressmember a piece of their mind by using our email form.
The 35 House Democrats are not all Blue Dogs from conservative districts. In fact, some of the names may surprise you: Bobby Rush from the South Side of Chicago, John Garamendi from the Sacramento suburbs and the openly gay Jared Polis of Boulder—to name a few.
Voting this way allows them to please their Wall Street donors, who pay close attention. And they hope that their liberal constituents back home won’t notice—or remember.
That’s where you come in. Every single time a group of Democrats betray us on Wall Street reform (or vote for the Keystone XL pipeline or vote to cut food stamps), we will mobilize their constituents to give them hell.
We need to make it more expensive for them to vote the wrong way, and pretty soon these Democrats will realize that it’s in their best interest to hold a united front against Republicans. It’s not exactly a new idea, but we need to remain vigilant for this Congress.
Before the Internet, it was difficult to keep close tabs on what happens in Congress and mobilize thousands of constituents. K Street lobbyists ran roughshod on Capitol Hill.
But as one of the 100,000 Daily Kos members who signed our petition wrote: “In this day of the internet, the whole world is watching.”
