March 13, 2025 - 1 Day to Shutdown

Ball still in the air on government funding, understanding what it's like to live off SNAP, supporting trans people's right to travel, and more!

Contact all members of Congress:

• By phone: (202) 224-3121

• By email: Congress.gov

• By US mail: Representatives / Senators

• By fax: Representatives / Senators

• By Resistbot: Resist.bot

Contact White House or other federal agencies:

• usa.gov/federal-agencies

If you have questions, comments, and especially submissions for actions, please email us at roganslisttips@gmail.com!

SHUTDOWN UPDATE: KEEP DEMS HOLDING THE LINE

Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed for cloture on the House’s continuing resolution on government funding – a blank check for Trump that will allow him and Musk to continue their thefts. Barring an agreement on adjusting the time, we are now set up for a vote to break the filibuster on Friday.

After a day of maneuvering on Capitol Hill, it’s still unclear whether Republicans will be able to get this power grab through. Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer took to the Senate floor yesterday and told us Trump and company did not have 60 votes and that the Democratic caucus was unified behind a clean one-month continuing resolution. Subsequent reporting suggested this may be a prelude to a cave – a strategic feint where Democrats agree to break the filibuster in exchange for an amendment vote on the stopgap that’s sure to fail, allowing Republicans to pass their slush fund while Democrats look like they tried to stop them. However, nothing is final yet, and the House Democratic Caucus have joined us in demanding the Senate stay strong and force the GOP to the table, promising to return to Washington ASAP for a vote on the 30-day resolution if it passes.

The bottom line is that our mission remains the same: keep up the pressure on the Senate to say hell no to the blank check bill and use their leverage to try to stop the coup. Let’s contact our members of Congress to send that message – being sure to remind Democrats we will know a vote for cloture enables the House resolution to pass, and adding a call to our House members to push them to take a break from “recess” and get back to work. We can find scripts and language here and send this Resistbot message by texting SIGN PZOBQT to 50409.

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EATING ON $6 A DAY - TAKE THE SNAP CHALLENGE

Republicans have proposed $230 billion in budget cuts that will largely come from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to pay for their tax cuts for billionaires. This program is a lifeline for more than 42 million low-income Americans, including one in five kids, and one of our most effective tools for fighting hunger – but it’s not the extravagant free ride the right claims it is. The average SNAP benefit is $6 a day per person, at a time when Trump’s tariffs are threatening to spike food prices. The Food Research and Action Center is issuing a SNAP Challenge to Americans for March 18th to 20th, asking folks to try to get by for three days spending only $6 a day on groceries and document their experience. This will give us a glimpse of the struggle millions of folks who rely on SNAP go through, and a sense of exactly what it means to cut them. Let’s read more about the challenge here and consider participating by registering here. And let’s also ask our members of Congress to take the SNAP Challenge too, to see if the folks considering cutting food benefits are willing to put their money where their mouths are.

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FREEDOM TO FLY FOR TRANS PEOPLE – COMMENT-A-THON TONIGHT, DEADLINE MARCH 17

In 2022, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that nonbinary, intersex, and gender nonconforming individuals can mark X for their gender on U.S. passports, instead of requiring them to choose either M (male) or F (female). This milestone expanded the liberty of millions of Americans, as surveys and studies show. The Trump administration is reversing this progress, threatening trans people’s ability to obtain accurate passports and creating dangerous barriers to travel, identification and fundamental rights. We have until March 17th to submit a public comment on this harmful change. Advocates for Trans Equality is rallying supporters to flood the portals. They’ve provided a toolkit with guides on where to comment and how to do so effectively we can check out here, along with a brief two minute video on best practices here and sample social media posts we can use to encourage others to stand up for trans folks’ freedom to fly here. They’re also hosting a webinar TONIGHT at 7PM Eastern where we can join together with other activists in a comment-a-thon! Let’s consider signing up for tonight’s comment-a-thon here, and let’s make sure we put A4TE’s tools to work and submit our comments to protect the freedom to fly before Monday’s deadline.

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A DARK DAY AT THE EPA

Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin yesterday announced the start of a series of efforts to gut environmental protections. He will attempt to unwind the finding that planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare which has been the basis for climate action under the Clean Air Act, along with emissions limits on power plants and cars and restrictions on mercury, soot and other air pollutants. They’re also shifting efforts away from enforcing the law against big polluters and shutting down environmental justice work. There’s a long way from publishing an essay in the Wall Street Journal to actual rule-making, and many of these moves will be challenged, but we are faced with dirtier air, dirtier water, and a more rapidly heating planet. There is a lot of work ahead of us. For today, let’s:

• take a moment to identify which groups are doing climate action and environmental justice advocacy near us and connect with them – much of what can be done right now will happen on the state and community level

• make sure we’re up to speed on the fights ahead by signing up for free newsletters from independent journalists focused on climate and the environment, such as Grist, Inside Climate News, Heatmap or

  HEATED

• sign up for a shift calling, postcarding or canvassing with the Environmental Voter Project, who aim to turn out low-propensity voters who care about a healthier world in every election

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ORGANIZING CALLS, CONTACTING CONGRESS, SUPPORTING RUNS FOR OFFICE – WE WILL FIGHT FOR PUBLIC SERVICES

Trump and Musk’s chainsawing of our federal workers and public services is rolling on, with the gutting of the Department of Education and weather forecasters leading the headlines this week and more expected soon. They are destroying our government so big corporations can profit off filling the gaps and they can redirect the “savings” to tax cuts for billionaires. We won’t stand for it. And we have multiple opportunities right now to fight to #SaveOurServices and show solidarity with federal workers:

• TONIGHT at 8PM Eastern, federal worker labor unions, the Working Families Party, and advocates for working people like Senator Chris Murphy and Robert Reich are holding an organizing call for a mass campaign to protect public services. We can register to join them here.

• ALSO TONIGHT at 8 PM Eastern, the National Education Association is holding an online town hall meeting to review how the dismantling of the Education Department will impact students, families and public schools and talk about what actions educators, parents and community members can take to fight for public education. We can register here.

• Whether we join the teachers or the federal unionists, let’s all be sure to use the NEA’s tool here to send a message to our members of Congress in support of the Department of Education!

• On TUESDAY, MARCH 25TH at 8PM, Run for Something is hosting a special event featuring Rep. Emily Randall (D-WA) to talk to former federal employees impacted by the Trump-Musk coup about running for office! We’ll hear how to start a campaign, learn what resources are available, and gain insight into life as a candidate and elected official. Let’s spread the word and let the former federal employees in our lives we think should continue to serve know – sign up here.

• The online daily magazine Slate, which provides analysis and commentary on current politics, news, business, technology, and culture, is offering six months of free access to federal workers who are currently employed or recently fired or let go. If that’s us, let’s claim our free access here… if it’s not, let’s let folks know!

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KEEPING AN EYE ON…

• Keep up the pressure to release Mahmoud Khalil

• 14th Now March in DC tomorrow

• 19 days until the April elections, here’s all the ways we can help win the Wisconsin Supreme Court and compete for House seats in Florida

• Next congressional recess starts in full Saturday, deadline pending

• 50501 Movement Remove/Reverse/Reclaims Days of Action March 15th, April 5th

• Tesla Takedowns this weekend and every weekend, national day of action April 5th

• Target Fast boycott in effect through April 17th, Latino Freeze boycotts on resegregation supporters continuing

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