BLOG CALL SCRIPTS THE WEEK OF FEBRUARY 27, 2018

 2018-02-27

Tell Members of Congress to Defend the 2020 Census

I’m calling to urge MoC to support full funding for the Census Bureau. An accurate count is of extreme importance and the Census Bureau is facing enormous challenges in preparing for the 2020 census which will now be conducted primarily on-line. There is a need for an additional $140 million in 2018 to fully fund critical outreach, promotion, and partnership activities. The Administration’s 2019 Budget request is also inadequate to cover costs of the 2020 Census, raising the concern that the Census will not be sufficiently accurate to support public confidence in the 2021 Congressional redistricting.

I also ask you to oppose a citizenship question on the 2020 census. This last-minute request from the Department of Justice to add an untested question would lower the response rate for both citizens and non-citizens, resulting in an inaccurate census and unfair allocation of resources based on such census results. It would burden the Census Bureau with costly additional non-response follow up work. It would also disrupt the planning process which is now well underway based on tested questions. DOJ’s purported rationale for the citizenship question – that it is necessary to execute the Voting Rights Act – is specious. Alternative surveys have been used for this purpose since 1965, and there is no need to change that practice

Tell Senators to oppose bill S. 2155, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and COnsumer Protection Act

Hello! My name is [ ] and I’m calling from [part of state]. I’m calling because I would like the Senator to oppose bill S. 2155, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act.

This bill goes way beyond just helping community banks. In fact, prominent banks that this bill helps include Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and Santander. And even worse, the bill puts us at risk of another financial crisis, it erodes consumer protections, and it allows racial discrimination in mortgage lending to go unchecked.

Please let the Senator know that I’ll be watching closely. Especially considering the huge handout Wall Street just got from the tax bill that Congress just passed, banks really don’t need the playing field tilted further in their favor.

Tell Senators to stay strong on immigration and not cave on any of the White House’s outrageous demands

Caller: Hi! My name is [name] and I’m calling from [part of state].

I’m calling today to tell the Senator that I expect her  to vote no on any immigration legislation that would make changes to legal migration or diversity visas. Protecting Dreamers is crucially important, but we can’t let Trump use them as a bargaining chip for drastic, permanent changes to legal immigration that serve his racist vision of who “deserves” to come to America.

It’s important to me that we protect Dreamers, too, but Trump wants to impose a family ban and build his ridiculous border wall in return for those protections. We should not have to pick between some immigrant families and others; The senator should hold strong against these Republican efforts to undermine our immigration system in service of Trump’s racist policies.