A senior Congressional legislative aide called me this morning on background as follows.
We must begin to organize a massive and unprecedented telephone call in campaign for passage of healthcare reform, to begin at 9AM EST on February 24th and extend through the entire day of the presidential healthcare meeting on February 25th.
This senior Congressional aide (who asked at this time to remain anonymous), advised that nothing less than a citizen outpouring the likes of which members of Congress have never seen, will be sufficient to get healthcare legislation passed.
Before I go any further, I want to remind anyone who happens to read this, that the Americans I've met in Little Rock, Kansas City, and Hartford, are not particularly interested in arcane legislative procedures which are destroying our country. All they know is they are sick or their child is ill and they require healthcare.
HERE'S A LINK TO THE 2/24 AND 2/25 1,000,000 CALLS FOR HEALTHCARE FACEBOOK PAGE, PLEASE SEND IT TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!
Update: Charles Chamberlain, the political director of Democracy For America just emailed me to say DFA is on board and will ask its entire membership to participate on the 24th and 25th. This is huge, it means other progressive organizations will hopefully follow the lead of DFA and participate in this grassroots show of force. Thank you, thank you, DFA!
More than anything, we require an unprecedented show of force from the grassroots. The Congressional aide expects many grassroots organizations to participate in this effort.
We need constituents calling their members and demanding passage of this legislation. It would be ideal to get at minimum 1000 calls per congressional district. Obviously Democratic districts are most important, but the Congressional aide said that Republican districts should not be ignored.
The Congressional aide said phone calls from constituents are the single most effective way to get these people to do their jobs. Always remember, these people we send to Washington to do our business, are primordial unfeeling beasts, and react to only two stimuli, MONEY and VOTES.
You and I have the votes. Now we need to let them know, that we will dump then overnight if they fail on our business which is healthcare reform.
We will be calling Speaker Pelosi: Tell Speaker Pelosi to 1) fix the Senate bill in the House, and 2) then pass the Senate bill after the Senate passes the reconciliation fix from the House.
The ask for Harry Reid will be: Allow reconciliation to proceed immediately.
HERE'S A LINK TO THE 2/24 AND 2/25 1,000,000 CALLS FOR HEALTHCARE FACEBOOK PAGE, PLEASE SEND IT TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!
Now to all of you who want the House to simply pass the Senate bill, without any assurance of the fixes which over 120 members of the Housedeem essential, you are obviously free to say whatever you want to whomever you call on the 24th and 25th. But the betting remains that these House members won't proceed, without a guarantee that, some of their profound concerns with the Senate bill be addressed and remedied through reconciliation.
The demand on your member of Congress will be for them to step up and pass the healthcare bill.
In the Senate we will focus on the 59 in the Democratic minority majority. Again, this aide said, there might (though it's unlikely, he conceded) be one or two republicans who could decide at the very last moment to do the right thing and vote for the American people, especially if several are flooded with calls from constituents.
The demand on your Senator (especially those we can count on for reconciliation) will be to vote for reconciliation.
On these two days, we'll also ask you to call the White House, though calling the White House should be your last call, we need to focus on the House and Senate throughout these two critical days.
Are you ready?
Can we count on you?
Please send this out on Twitter.
Please post it on your Facebook page.
Will you stand up and make your voice heard?
Will you make just a few more calls?
Will you ask your friend, family and neighbors to help?
Can you turn this into one of the largest citizen mobilizations in the history of our country?
HERE'S A LINK TO THE 2/24 AND 2/25 1,000,000 CALLS FOR HEALTHCARE FACEBOOK PAGE, PLEASE SEND IT TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!