Letters to My Congressman (9)

I was disappointed, but not surprised, that you voted against Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House. I would like to think that perhaps if you had heard her inspiring, inclusive, hopeful acceptance speech, you would have made the correct choice instead of voting for Kevin McCarthy. But then again, your votes for people, like your votes for legislation, have generally left much to be desired. We remember sadly and often that you also chose to support the current occupant of the White House despite the racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, boorish, ignorant and un-American words he had spoken during the campaign.

Perhaps you were swayed too by Kevin McCarthy’s words which he spoke to introduce the new Democratic leader of the House whose ascendancy the American people made possible when they resoundingly defeated your Republican Party in the great wave election of November, 2018. I too was especially and profoundly moved when I heard him say: “But while we seek cooperation, there is one core principle upon which we will not compromise, Republicans will always choose personal freedom over governmental control.” Evidently you were fooled by these words and cast yet another poor vote. I instead was angered and then amused by its hypocrisy.

For your Republican Party has long since stopped being the champion of personal freedom. How can your Party say it supports personal freedom when:

It fights to suppress the right of women to make decisions about their reproductive health.

It attacks the freedom of workers to organize through a systematic attack on the institution of labor unions.

It suppresses the economic freedom of millions by failing to support a livable minimum wage (it has been a decade since the minimum wage has been raised: you and your brother have done nothing to improve the situation during this time).

It again suppresses economic freedom by exacerbating income inequality by passing unfair tax legislation that depletes our treasury (thereby further reducing economic benefits to the middle class) simply to shovel trillions of dollars to the rich.

It again suppresses economic freedom, specifically of women, by not fighting for pay equality.

It suppresses political freedoms by engaging in a constant systematic un-American effort to suppress the vote, especially in minority communities.

It is generally silent on expanding the economic and political freedoms of oppressed groups such as the LGBTQ community, poverty-stricken African-Americans in the inner city, and the Dreamers.

It fails to provide personal freedom to the dead children fallen victims to gun violence.

It fails to provide personal freedom to the dead children innocently seeking political asylum at our border.

Yet what has your friend, outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan accomplished during his tenure? He has made the rich more free by passing his trillion dollar tax cut, failed to exercise his constitutional duty to effectively provide oversight of the Executive Branch, and has left to his successor a broken shutdown government that is hurting almost a million workers and denying needed government services to millions more. How free will those government workers be when they no longer receive their paychecks? Are you still proud of your Republican Party’s “commitment to personal freedom?”

In her acceptance speech, House Speaker Pelosi painted a far more inspiring political philosophy, one that was inclusive and aspirational in a fundamentally American way. She celebrated the accomplishments of Republican presidents Bush and Reagan, citing the American With Disabilities Act of the former and the pro-immigration stance of the latter: “As President Reagan said in his last speech as President: ‘If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.’ “ She hopes to strengthen the middle class both economically and politically, fight income inequality, attack climate change head-on, pass reasonable gun safety legislation, end LQBTQ discrimination, protect the Dreamers and more, all with a transparent, bipartisan and unifying methodology. Her agenda will truly promote, in action and not in self-serving empty words, the personal freedoms of all Americans.

I hope that over the next few months you recognize that you should have indeed cast your vote for her wise leadership. I hope that you will support her inspiring American legislative agenda instead of the hypocrisy and emptiness of your Party’s ideology which has been soundly and loudly rejected in the election that brought her and the Democrats to power in the People’s House.

It’s time for meaningful legislative action to promote the freedoms of all Americans, not empty words.