May 14, 2025 - Even More Ways We Lose in the "Big, Beautiful Bill"

Defend Planned Parenthood, judges and our schools, plus organizer training, textbanking and more

May 14, 2025

🚨 Phonebank into key districts to rally support against the GOP budget today at 7PM ET - join here, find more ways to help here 🚨

Contact all members of Congress:
By phone: (202) 224-3121
By email: Congress.gov
By US mail: Representatives / Senators
By Resistbot: Resist.bot

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

Disability rights protesters in wheelchairs had to be dragged out of the hearing on the reconciliation bill’s cuts to Medicaid. 26 were arrested. Let’s have their backs. Photo via The Independent.

🚨DEFEND, DON’T DEFUND, PLANNED PARENTHOOD 🚨

As if it weren’t enough to kick 10.3 million people off Medicaid, devastating care for seniors and threatening to force rural hospitals to close their doors, the Republican reconciliation plan is also going after reproductive health care. The Energy and Commerce section of the bill pushes forward plans to “defund” Planned Parenthood by blocking Medicaid reimbursements to health providers that offer abortions. This could put access to birth control, STI screenings, cancer screenings and other lifesaving care out of reach for low-income families. Planned Parenthood serves 2 million people every year, and for many of them it’s their only source of health care – 64% of their health centers are in medically underserved, health professional shortage or rural areas.

So-called Republican “moderates” have suggested they’d oppose including this kind of measure in the final legislation, and we need to put pressure on them to follow through. Let’s reach out to our members of Congress and tell them we want defunding Planned Parenthood removed from reconciliation. We can use language from this email tool from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

STAND WITH PLANNED PARENTHOOD

⚖️ GOP ATTEMPTS TO STRIP JUDGES OF POWER TO ENFORCE CONTEMPT OF COURT ⚖️

The nonprofit killer isn’t the only authoritarian weapon the GOP is cramming into their reconciliation bill. As flagged by

Walter Olson

and Notre Dame law professor Sam Bray, the House Judiciary Committee added a provision banning federal judges from enforcing contempt of court rulings over a wide range of court orders.

This measure, Section 70303, comes as the administration repeatedly defies the judiciary and at least two federal judges are actively suggesting they’ll hold Trump officials in contempt. Instead of standing up against Trump’s dictatorial power grabs, Republicans like Jim Jordan are trying to make it harder for those who believe in democracy to stop him.

This is an affront to the rule of law and to checks and balances, a free pass for Trump to act like a king. Let’s reach out to our members of Congress and demand it be removed. We can find scripts and language to use here, or send this message via Resistbot by texting SIGN PFJMNX to 50409.

PROTECT CHECKS AND BALANCES

🏫 SCHOOL PRIVATIZATION ALSO MAKES IT INTO RECONCILIATION 🏫

The GOP’s reconciliation bill is a clown car packed full of giveaways to the wealthy that sell out regular Americans, so much so that some are slipping under the radar. One example: House Republicans have included a school privatization plan, setting aside $5 billion every year for scholarships to send kids to corporate and religious schools. This would be funded by donors who would receive 100% of the contribution back as a tax credit, a tax shelter for the wealthy that turns public funds into private subsidies while undermining public schools.

We can contact our members of Congress and tell them to drop this provision working off this script from 5Calls. We can also find talking points and learn more about the school privatization scheme from the National Coalition for Public Education here. Finally, we can sign up for updates on ways to continue the fight in the weeks to come from the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools here.

JOIN THE ALLIANCE TO RECLAIM OUR SCHOOLS

✊ ORGANIZER 101 TRAINING FROM ACTIVATE AMERICA TOMORROW ✊🏿

Being a leader doesn’t require perfection or years of experience. It just takes a willingness to learn and the courage to say “I’m ready.” If we are, Activate America will help us take the next step in our activism. They will be hosting a free Organizer 101 leadership training TOMORROW from 5:00PM-6:30PM, which will teach us:

The difference between mobilizing and organizing
How to hold powerful 1:1 conversations that move people to action
How to map our power
How to plan our first campaign action with real tools and coaching our next step as a local leader

Whether we’re brand-new to organizing or already involved, this session will help us grow and bring others with us. Let's take this opportunity to build our skills and RSVP for Activate America's Organizer 101. We can also check out current postcarding campaigns, sign up to phone bank, or write a letter to our members of Congress.

🗳️ TEXTING, POSTCARDING TO GOTV AND BEAT VOTER SUPPRESSION 🗳️

We have important elections coming up soon in Pennsylvania, where the primary for this year’s judicial elections comes this Tuesday and Georgia, where there will be a primary for a long-delayed race for two seats on the state Public Service Commission on June 17th. Turnout can be everything in these low-profile races, and we need to make sure we get out folks out to vote and keep them from being turned away at the polls if they do. VoteRiders is holding a textbank to reach voters at risk of being disenfranchised TOMORROW at 7PM. We can sign up to join them here.

TEXTBANK AT-RISK VOTERS WITH VOTERIDERS

We can also help with traditional GOTV by joining the Black Voters Matter text team next Tuesday at 6 PM by signing up here or helping Georgia Working Families Party at a virtual postcarding party on Monday at 6:30 PM by signing up here.

🔬 SAVING OUR DATA FROM THE TRUMP PURGE 🔬

So much valuable, publicly available data is being lost due to the Trump regime's elimination and downsizing of important government agencies. The Data Rescue Project is a coordinated effort among a group of data organizations, including IASSIST, RDAP, and members of the Data Curation Network, and aims to serve as a clearinghouse for data rescue-related efforts and data access points for public US governmental data that are currently at risk. We can read more about their efforts here, track what they’re working on here, subscribe or volunteer to contribute here and donate to support their efforts here.

KEEPING AN EYE ON…

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