Federal Action Alert – January 23, 2023

Produced by the Legislative Committee of the Coconino County Democratic Party and Democrats of the Red Rocks

A. Demand that our Representatives support a clean raising of the debt ceiling ASAP!!
Janet Yellen, Treasury Secretary, has indicated that the Treasury Department would need
to begin taking extraordinary measures to avoid a catastrophic default as early as January
19! These measure are expected to suffice until June when the US could default if the
debt ceiling is not raised. The last time Republicans help the debt ceiling hostage was
2011 and while the debt ceiling was raised in time, the hostage taking stance by
Republicans resulted in the only credit rating downgrade in the history of our country!
Republicans intend to use the threat of refusing to raise the debt limit (the amount the
Treasury can borrow for debts already authorized by Congress!!) so that they can get
spending concessions – specifically to reduce spending on Social Security and Medicare.
WE MUST RAISE THE DEBT LIMIT ASAP!!


B. Insist our Senators don’t let Republicans block federal judge nominees!!
Apparently, the Senate has had this practice that require both senators from the home
state of a judicial nominee to approve of their nomination via returning the “blue slip” of
paper. This quaint custom has allowed Republicans to weaponize the judicial nomination
process to keep Black and Brown nominees and civil rights lawyers from the federal
bench. Republicans in key southern states where district courts are the battleground for
countless human rights cases have been able to block qualified judicial nominees who
would be key contributors to moving civil rights forward. Republicans during the Trump
years steamrolled over Democratic objections to their extremist nominees proving that
blue slips are simply obsolete and outdated!! Insist our Senators do away with blue
slips once and for all!!

Sen. Mark Kelly: Call (202) 224-2235 (DC); Email via his website at
https://www.kelly.senate.gov/contact/. Tag the Senator at @senmarkkelly.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema: Call (202) 224-4521 (DC) or (602) 598-7327. Email via her website at
https://www.sinema.senate.gov/contact-kyrsten. Tag the Senator at @senatorsinema.
Rep. Eli Crane: Call (202) 225-3361 (DC) or email via website at
https://crane.house.gov/contact. Tag the Congressman @RepEliCrane

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