Wednesday, March 15 - Affordable Healthcare Event 3/20 / Tell Democrats to Confirm Judges
Action You Can Take Today
Action 1: Making Healthcare Affordable in IL virtual webinar on Monday, March 20 at noon
Action 2: Tell Senate Democrats: Stop Letting Republicans Block Biden Judges
Action 1: Affordable Healthcare Event 3/20
The average Illinoisan spends $7,449 a year on healthcare costs. That number continues to skyrocket year after year, having increased by over 25% in the past decade.
More can be done to protect Illinois consumers from excessive healthcare costs. Join us next Monday (3/20) at noon for a virtual webinar on what legislators can do to make healthcare more affordable in Illinois and learn how you can get involved.
Action via Citizen Action IL
Action 2: Tell Democrats to Confirm Judges
President Biden has successfully nominated over a hundred federal judges who reflect the diversity of this country – he has prioritized nominees who are women, people of color, and lawyers with diverse professional backgrounds (like public defenders, civil rights and reproductive health attorneys, and more). President Biden, along with Democrats in the Senate, have confirmed these judges at a historic pace, and their presence on the federal bench will go a long way towards counterbalancing the MAGA judges favored by Trump and their extreme ideologies.
However, Senate Democrats could do more to confirm federal judges. Right now, Democrats are handing significant power to Senate Republicans to effectively veto Biden’s nominees in certain states – they’re deferring to an archaic Senate rule called the “blue slip,” which allows an individual senator to withhold support for any person nominated to serve as a federal judge in their state. For example, if President Biden nominated someone to serve as a judge in Florida, either Sen. Marco Rubio or Sen. Rick Scott could block that person’s nomination by refusing to return their blue slip (something Marco Rubio has done in the past!). This has the effect of keeping a judicial vacancy open until a Republican can fill it with one of their favored anti-abortion, anti-democratic MAGA judges instead.
It will come as no surprise to you that Republicans did not follow this rule when they controlled the Senate under then-President Trump, and confirmed dozens of judges that Democratic senators opposed by withholding their blue slips. Yet Democrats continue to offer deference to Republicans and slow down one of President Biden’s signature achievements to date.
There is something Senate Democrats can do right now: DITCH THE BLUE SLIP AND KEEP CONFIRMING AS MANY JUDGES AS POSSIBLE. Like the filibuster, the blue slip rule is not in the constitution or the law. In fact, it’s even less real than the filibuster – it’s not in the formal Senate rules at all, it’s just a longstanding tradition, and Sen. Dick Durbin, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, could ditch it any time he wants. Republicans don’t have control of the Senate or the White House, Democrats do. And they must stop giving Republicans the power to block our progress.
Action via Indivisible
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