November 4 Newsletter

The Feinstein 1200 Newsletter: November 4, 2009

1. General Comments on Yesterday's Elections

2. OFA's New Efforts

3. Meet The Pelosi Twelve

1. Yesterday's Elections: The good news is that, even though the media is calling yesterday’s election a victory for conservatives, we did win two more votes for health care reform, however watered down the reform now appears. This gives Pelosi a bit more leverage, and that's important. As for the current state of health care reform, I strongly recommend this article by Brian Beutler.

2. OFA's New Efforts: OFA, as I noted over the weekend, is stepping up its efforts to put pressure on representatives to support the House bill. For a lot of you, this will justifiably appear to be “too little too late.” But when OFA does the right thing, it may be appropriate to reward them with our participation. Just don't give them any cash until you see some results - they've been folded into the DNC for nearly a year now, which means your cash donation supports "Democrats" as conservative as Mary Landrieu.

(OFA may be responding to the scrutiny they've received in articles like this from The New Republic. If so, I commend their ability to start getting back on track.)

If you’re interested in phone-banking for them, please let me know – I’m happy to help coordinate.

3. Meet The Pelosi Twelve: Yesterday, 12 people went to Speaker Pelosi’s office in downtown San Francisco and were arrested for peacefully occupying her office in support of the Kucinich amendment.

As one of the “Pelosi 12” reports:

“We wanted to directly communicate two demands: that the Kucinich amendment be included in the health care bill that will soon be brought to a vote in the House and that the Weiner amendment be voted on by the House, as previously promised by Pelosi.”

(Editor's Note: I was not one of the “Pelosi 12.” Nor did I attend as an observer. But I greatly admire the resolve of the people who were arrested, and from what I have read of the incident, I have to commend their civil disobedience.)

If you would like to stand by the brave efforts of these activists, please consider the advice from Don Bechler, of Single Payer Now (thanks to L. for the reminder):

“Please call Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Ask her to keep her promise to put the Kucinich Amendment in the house healthcare legislation.” (As she had promised.) “And please ask her to keep her promise to allow a vote on HR 676, ‘The United States National Health Insurance Act,’ Or ‘Expanded & Improved Medicare for All’. This is referred to as the Weiner Amendment. Speaker Nancy Pelosi can be called at (202) 225-4965 or 415-556-4862.”

Separately: I’ll have an important message from Ellen Shaffer tomorrow (I didn’t want to overload you with info today), which sheds some light on what went on behind the scenes with the House bill.

Please contact me with any questions or comments.