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Category: Cori Bush

  • Nearly 100 House Democrats Send Letter to Schumer Demanding End to Filibuster

    Rep. Cori Bush speaks during a news conference to advocate for ending the Senate filibuster, outside the U.S. Capitol on April 22, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

    Representatives Cori Bush (D-Missouri) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) are leading an effort with nearly 100 of their fellow House members to end the Senate filibuster. The lawmakers join many progressive and Democratic advocates in saying that the filibuster is a roadblock to progress.

    “In today’s hyper-partisan climate, there is simply no avenue for bold legislation that meets the needs of everyday Americans without ending the filibuster,” the representatives wrote in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York). “We must end the gridlock that has become common practice in Washington and govern boldly and transformatively to improve the lives of millions of people, children, and families all across the country.”

    The lawmakers say that getting rid of the filibuster, which forces bills to have 60 votes to be able to pass, is essential to passing things like a $15 federal minimum wage, voting rights bills like the For the People Act, climate bills, and reforms on immigration and gun rights, among other proposals.

    “For too many people in our communities, their very survival is at stake. Republicans are well aware that removing barriers to passing legislation will have a transformational impact on these communities,” the lawmakers write. “It is why they are passing legislation at the state level across the country in an attempt to suppress the votes of Black, brown and Indigenous people. It is also why they are preventing the Senate from advancing critical legislation that can meet the needs of the people we represent.”

    The letter notes that lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have tried to get rid of the filibuster before. In fact, lawmakers got rid of the House’s filibuster 130 years ago because it was preventing progress.

    The Senate filibuster, as the lawmakers point out, is a relic of the Jim Crow era and has a history of being used to block civil rights. Advocates have said that filibuster abolition is thus an issue of racial equality and justice.

    “Filibuster reform is critical for advancing racial justice,” said Senior Director of Democracy and Criminal Justice for Color of Change Scott Roberts in a statement. “Democratic Senators who defend the filibuster are protecting a legacy of racism, and are choosing to let an outdated rule block progress that would begin to address the challenges facing Black communities across the country.”

    In more recent times, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) has made himself an expert in wielding the filibuster as a weapon against Democrats, as he did under Barack Obama.

    McConnell knows that he can continue to wield that power in his newfound minority; at the beginning of this congressional session, McConnell held up the Senate by insisting on protecting the filibuster. Last month, he threatened to go “scorched earth” if Democrats got rid of the filibuster, saying that he’d make the Senate look like a “100-car pileup.”

    But filibuster abolition faces opposition from both sides of the Senate. Democrats like Senators Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona) have opposed getting rid of the filibuster even though it is a significant roadblock to progress. Though Democrats, including President Joe Biden to a small extent, and progressives have been working on changing the minds of Sinema, Manchin and other Democrats about holding on to the arcane rule, they have so far not been very successful in their efforts.

    Bush and Jayapal, along with fellow letter leaders Representatives Jason Crow (D-Colorado) and Sean Casten (D-Illinois), hope that highlighting Democratic policies that are held up by the filibuster can help sway the Senate their way.

    “It’s LGBTQ+ equality or the filibuster. It’s DC Statehood or the filibuster. It’s voting rights or the filibuster. It’s the Dream Act, gun safety reforms, campaign finance reform, and equal pay or the filibuster,” tweeted Jayapal on Thursday. “The choice is clear. We must eliminate the filibuster.”

    Casten highlighted the urgency and timeliness of the matter as Republicans attempt to pass hundreds of voter suppression laws at the state level. “Republicans proposed at least 250 voting restriction laws at the state level. Georgia has already passed a voter suppression bill. H.R. 1 is waiting to be passed in the Senate and it would protect our right to vote,” he wrote. “This is an urgent crisis. We must end the filibuster and pass it.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ed Markey Reintroduce the Green New Deal

    Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks during a press conference to re-introduce the Green New Deal in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on April 20, 2021.

    Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) are set to reintroduce the Green New Deal (GND) resolution in Congress on Tuesday. The lawmakers last introduced the legislation two years ago.

    “For the past two years, it has been proven that the Green New Deal isn’t just a resolution, it is a revolution,” said Markey at an event unveiling the legislation.

    The reintroduction comes during what Ocasio-Cortez has dubbed “Green New Deal week,” as she and fellow progressives introduce GND-related legislation ahead of President Joe Biden’s climate summit beginning on Thursday.

    “For so long, our movement towards a sustainable future has been divided with really just this false notion that we have to choose between our planet and our economy,” said Ocasio-Cortez at the unveiling. “And we decided to come together in sweeping legislation that not only rejects that notion, but creates a plan for 20 million union jobs in the United States of America to rebuild our infrastructure.”

    The lawmakers last introduced the GND resolution in 2019. It got over 100 co-sponsors in the House and 14 co-sponsors in the Senate, but it never got a vote in either chamber. Ocasio-Cortez says that this year’s version of the resolution has new sponsors.

    Though the legislation was criticized and falsely smeared by the right, Markey pointed out on Tuesday that legislators like Representatives Jamaal Bowman (D-New York) and Mondaire Jones (D-New York) and Senator Markey himself ran on the Green New Deal and won their elections.

    “We made bold climate action not only a voting issue, we made it a winning, political issue. And now, all of these leaders are working to pass bold, visionary legislation,” said Markey. “Climate justice is finally taking over the halls of the United States Congress.” Markey says that the Green New Deal has shifted goalposts on climate for not only the U.S. government but also for other countries and for companies within the U.S. making climate goals.

    The Green New Deal resolution has called for a host of climate, energy and economic proposals like a federal jobs guarantee and is rooted around justice for frontline and oppressed communities. Ocasio-Cortez, as well as the many environmental organizations like the Sunrise Movement that are proponents of the legislation, say that an all-encompassing plan such as the GND will be essential to tackling the climate crisis in an equitable and just way.

    “It is going to be an all hands on deck approach, and we refuse to leave any community behind in the process,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We refuse to allow, for example, an economy that goes from oil barons to solar barons. That’s what we’re not going to do.”

    “Because what we’re going to do is we’re going to transition to a 100 percent carbon-free economy that is more unionized, more just, more dignified, and guarantees more health care and housing than we ever have before. That’s our goal,” Ocasio-Cortez continued.

    Markey and Ocasio-Cortez are also introducing legislation for a Civilian Climate Corps on Tuesday. The Civilian Climate Corps hearkens back to the original New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps and is a progressive proposal that has been adopted by Biden. As one of his first actions in office, Biden signed an executive order to create a Civilian Climate Corps to create jobs for careers in climate- and environment-related work.

    Tuesday’s proposals come on the heels of two other GND proposals that Ocasio-Cortez, alongside other progressive lawmakers, introduced on Monday.

    Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) reintroduced legislation on Monday for a Green New Deal for Public Housing. The bill would provide over $100 billion in investments in public housing over the next decade to make public housing safer for residents and more climate-friendly.

    Ocasio-Cortez also teamed up with Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri) on Monday to introduce a plan to provide $1 trillion in federal funding to cities that are seeking to slash emissions and implement a Green New Deal. The plan is called the Green New Deal for Cities, and it specifically highlights funding for reparations for Black and Indigenous communities.

    “We know that to fight climate change, we need to root out environmental injustice where we feel it every day: in our communities,” said Bush in a video promoting the legislation. Bush emphasized that the legislation is about addressing injustices like air and water pollution that disproportionately affect frontline neighborhoods.

    The lawmakers are introducing the legislation at a time of great significance for the Democrats — since Democrats control Congress and the White House, it’s a crucial time to get climate-related initiatives passed. Progressives are hoping to nudge Biden and the Democratic caucus to the left with ambitious policy like the GND.

    A proposal like the Green New Deal for Public Housing, for instance, calls for significantly more funding for public housing than the $40 billion Biden has proposed in his recent $2 trillion infrastructure bill.

    Ocasio-Cortez has said that Biden’s infrastructure plan has elements of the Green New Deal and that Biden has adopted proposals by progressive climate advocates in the past, but that it’s still not big enough. “The size of it is disappointing,” she told NPR. Many other Democrats and climate activists have urged Biden to go bigger on his infrastructure plan.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Bernie Sanders Introduces Bills to Lower Prescription Drug Costs

    Ahead of a subcommittee hearing on the “soaring” cost of prescription drugs in the U.S., Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), along with a cohort of House representatives, introduced a set of bills that would lower the cost of most brand-name drugs by 50 percent.

    “How many people need to die? How many people need to get unnecessarily sicker before Congress is prepared to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry?” Sanders asked in a hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. “Last year, one out of five Americans could not afford to buy the medicine prescribed by their doctor.”

    “The United States pays by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. This is an immediate health crisis that must be addressed,” Sanders said in a statement released Tuesday. Indeed, recent analyses have shown that prescription drug prices in the U.S. are on average 2.6 times higher than what they are in other countries, and 3.4 times higher for brand-name drugs.

    The bills, introduced by Sanders, Representatives Ro Khanna (D-California), Cori Bush (D-Missouri) and over two dozen others are aimed at “drastically” reducing the cost of prescription drugs, according to a Sanders press release.

    Similar to proposals previously championed by Sanders during his presidential run, the three bills would peg the price of prescription drugs to the median drug prices in five major countries, including Canada and the U.K.; direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate for lower drug prices; and allow patients and pharmacies to safely import drugs from other countries like Canada.

    “In the wealthiest nation on planet Earth, no one should be choosing between paying for their medications or paying their rent,” said Khanna. Drug prices in the U.S. steadily tick up each year, a number of analyses have found.

    During the hearing, Sanders noted that, compared to other special interest groups, the pharmaceutical industry has some of the most power over Capitol Hill. The pharmaceutical and health products industries spend hundreds of millions in lobbying every year, finds OpenSecrets, and that number has risen over the past decade. Last year, OpenSecrets reports, the pharmaceutical and health products industry spent over $306 million on lobbying.

    “The pharmaceutical industry is out of control,” Sanders told CNN. “They can charge any price they want at any time and that has to change.” The U.S. essentially has no regulations governing drug prices, so the pharmaceutical industry can set prices however they want.

    In 2016, for instance, controversy erupted when pharmaceutical company Mylan raised the price of the lifesaving EpiPen by 400 percent over the course of a few years to $500. And in 2015, former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli came under scrutiny for raising the price of an HIV/AIDS treatment from $13.50 to $750 per tablet.

    Prescription drug prices are often a top concern for voters and the general concept of lowering drug prices has bipartisan buy-in. Many Republicans have run with the proposal on their platforms, but end up not delivering. Previous attempts to lower drug prices, via different methods, had the backing of the public and even then-President Donald Trump, but members of Congress couldn’t agree on the right way to go about it.

    The current bill on offer is unlikely to get Republican backing, as the GOP and the pharmaceutical industry are particularly opposed to letting the government negotiate drug prices.

    However, Sanders and fellow lawmakers behind the bill are confident that they can pass the package through reconciliation in the Senate, meaning that they could pass it with no Republican buy-in. The proposal is strong enough that the pharmaceutical industry, normally untouchable on Capitol Hill, is bracing for defeat, Politico reports.

    Democrats are considering putting the drug pricing proposals into an upcoming infrastructure bill that the White House is putting together as a cost-saving measure.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Cori Bush Grills Postmaster DeJoy About USPS’s Board of “Millionaire White Boys”

    Mailman James Daniels delivers mail on his route on May 15, 2020, in San Clemente, California.

    During Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s hearing before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Wednesday, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri) noted that, despite the fact that people of color make up a sizeable share of United States Postal Service (USPS) employees, the postal service board is entirely made up of white men.

    “Currently the board includes only white men. This grotesque lack of representation is a critical opportunity to diversify the board’s ranks,” said Bush. “An agency with over 640,000 employees that come from every walk of life and serve the entire American public should have representation at the top reflective of the broader American population. More than 35 percent of postal workers are people of color, while zero percent of governors are.”

    People of color represent a larger percentage of postal workers than in the U.S. population at large. While 23 percent of postal workers are Black, for instance, Black people make up only about 13 percent of the U.S. population.

    The USPS board of governors is currently made up of six white men and has three vacancies. These board members were all appointed by Donald Trump and they helped select DeJoy — who has many ties to Trump and the Republican party — for the top position last year as Trump and the GOP set about attacking the USPS.

    Wednesday’s hearing was part of a series of attempts by Congress to question DeJoy on his gutting of the postal service since he took the helm. Installing DeJoy to gut the USPS was an integral element of Trump’s plan last year to sow discord and distrust in the 2020 election.

    Though Trump lost, the problems with USPS have remained as mail delays continue well into 2021. Those delays are likely to continue, as DeJoy said on Wednesday that the USPS’s forthcoming strategic plan may include further provisions to slow down mail, including removing mail from air transportation and slowing down first-class mail.

    As the face and driving force behind the slow dismantling of the postal service, DeJoy has come under much fire for not only his actions as the postmaster general but also for his dealings in the private sector.

    A new report by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington found that XPO Logistics, a transportation company where DeJoy was formerly an executive, was awarded a Christmas contract by USPS last year to help with seasonal deliveries. While it’s unclear whether or not DeJoy was fully divested from the company at the time and if the contract was routine, it raises questions about potential conflicts of interest that DeJoy may have. This contract is, after all, on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars that the USPS paid to the company while DeJoy worked there.

    But it’s not only DeJoy who’s been under scrutiny. Almost all of the members of the board have financial ties to Trump and the Republican party and, as Bush pointed out on Wednesday, have backgrounds in elite finance jobs that, in some cases, may represent conflicts of interest.

    “The positions that are filled and are not supposed to be represented by special interests actually include Wall Street bankers and fossil fuel lobbyists,” said Bush.

    “Do you see it as a problem that the board of governors of the United States Postal Service looks like a millionaire white boys club?” Bush asked DeJoy. DeJoy responded that the board isn’t currently full and said that it’s the president’s problem to solve.

    “The quicker we get some new board members from the new administration, the less we can talk about this and move on to the plan and the real problems we need to fix here,” said DeJoy in response.

    But, since the current board that chose him is made up of people who have similar interests and similar political ties to DeJoy, filling the board under the current president may not actually be in his best interest if he wants to keep his job, which he appears to think is going to happen. He said he intends to be around “a long time,” and told lawmakers at the hearing that they should “get used to [him].”

    That may not soon be the case, however. On Wednesday, Joe Biden announced three picks to fill the empty seats on the board that will add to its racial and gender diversity. Since Biden took office, there have been many calls by Democrats to fill the seats with Democrats who could oust the Trump-loyalist postmaster general.

    Biden has tapped former Deputy Postmaster General Ron Stroman, National Vote at Home Institute head Amber McReynolds and former general counsel for the American Postal Workers Union Anton Hajjar. McReynolds is a woman and Stroman and Hajjar are men of color.

    Though Biden can’t fire DeJoy directly, his picks, if confirmed, may be able to remove him. There are currently two Democrats and four Republicans on the board, partly because Republicans refused to confirm Barack Obama’s appointments, leaving Trump to fill the empty seats. If Biden’s picks are confirmed, he can create a 5-4 majority that can then vote to push DeJoy out.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Cori Bush Demands Expulsion for Every Republican Who Incited the Capitol Siege

    Rep. Cori Bush speaks to the press outside of the Hyatt Regency hotel on Capitol Hill on November 12, 2020, in Washington, D.C.

    Congresswoman Cori Bush of Missouri delivered an emotional speech on the House floor Thursday night detailing her experience of the January 6 mob invasion of the U.S. Capitol Building — which she called a “blatant, heinous, vile white supremacist attack” — and demanding that lawmakers take the basic step of holding to account those who abetted and incited the deadly violence.

    The Missouri Democrat’s remarks were part of a series of speeches organized by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in which members of the House provided their individual perspectives of the events of last month in an effort to inform the public and bolster the pursuit consequences for all responsible, including former President Donald Trump.

    A racial justice and anti-police brutality organizer prior to her election to Congress in November, Bush said Thursday that as the pro-Trump insurrectionists broke into and began storming through the halls of the Capitol Building on January 6, she felt “like this was one of the days out there on the streets when the white supremacists would show up and start shooting at us.”

    “This was one of the days when the police would ambush us from behind, from behind trees, and from behind buildings, and all of a sudden now we’re on the ground feeling brutalized,” Bush said. “And I just remember taking a second thinking, if they touch these doors, and come anywhere near my staff, and I’m just going to be real honest about it, my thought process was: we banging to the end. I’m not letting them take out my people. And you’re not taking me out. We’ve come too far.”

    The Missouri Democrat went on to specifically address the Republicans whose incessant lies about the results of the 2020 presidential election — and efforts to overturn the results of that contest — helped fuel last month’s attack, pointing to her resolution calling for investigation and expulsion of seditious members of Congress.

    “If we cannot stand up to white supremacy in this moment, as representatives, then why did you run for office in the first place?” Bush asked. “We can’t build a better society if members are too scared to stand up and act to reject the white supremacist attack that happened right before our eyes. How can we trust that you will address the suffering that white supremacy causes on a day to day basis in the shadows if you can’t even address the white supremacy that happens right in front of you in your house? Does your silence speak to your agreement is the question.”

    “On January 3, we stood together to swear an oath to office to the Constitution,” Bush continued. “We swore to defend it against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Well, it was attacked by a domestic enemy called white supremacy and we must stand together now, today, to uphold that oath and hold every single person who helped incite it accountable.”

    Watch the full speech:

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.