Daily Dems Doing the Work, Making Noise and Fighting Back Day 277

It's briefing summary time!

Today I attended two briefings I heard from eight Dem House members and after these conversations I feel at lot more clarity on where our Dems stand, how hard they are willing to fight, and what they need from us.

So, without further ado…

Rep Jimmy Gomez (CA-34)

Spoke to us all about healthcare, but also we gave some suggestions for how he can best message. And I gave some great ones, and promise, if he uses them I won’t shut up about it.

1. The first thing he said that I didn’t know is that while, obviously Members of Congress get healthcare, it’s through the marketplace. They are in the exact same situation as many Americans, and, they also have no idea how much their rates are changing, the congressional HR staff, who deal with this, are furloughed. So many people think that members of congress are automatically rich and part of the “elite” and that’s just not the case. Don’t get me wrong, there are absolutely some that are, but it’s far less than you think.

2. Most Dem states created Medicaid expansion, but most Republican states did not, so while everyone across the country will be affected, those living in red states will be affected significantly more.

3. He mentioned how Trump had the funds to stop all of this, but that that money went to bailing out Argentina rather than helping Americans survive. I thought that was a good way of looking at it.

4. Our content helps. He said that when we post something with successful messaging, he’s looking at that to see what his most successful messaging could be. So we have the power to make his messaging better. He also repeated show not tell a lot. As in, he does something to show his colleagues that it’s the right thing to do. Some Dems might be hesitant to try different content, he’s not, so if you can get his attention, and he likes the idea, chances are other Dems might catch on too.

5. He talked about how his siblings were born in Mexico and his family had experience with hunger. His dad used to say “the worst feeling in the world is hunger.” I heard different versions of this throughout the day. Many of our Dems come from a very working class background, and these cuts and pauses to vital federal services really hit home, they’re personal.

6. Whenever any Republican says they support SNAP, it’s important to remind everyone that Republicans are the only party that has attacked SNAP. And they’ve done so three times this year already, including the Big Ugly Bill, which already created cuts before this Shutdown even started.

7. We then went into Q&A and Imani Barbarin, of Crutches and Spice, brought up the disability community, and how they are always left out of support for things like the loss of SNAP. I feel very confident in saying that Rep Gomez listened and learned and is going to work in that specifically. I also had some ideas surrounding this as well, and again, if they are used, you will know.

The second briefing was all about SNAP with the Dem Women’s Caucus led by chair Rep Teresa Leger-Fernandez (AZ-03)

Rep Jahana Hayes (CT-05)

Spoke first.

1. She is not remotely surprised this is happening, she’s been in many many meetings with Republicans, as the ranking member in the Nutrition and Foreign Agriculture subcommittee, and she saw the writing on the wall based on how they were acting in those meetings.

2. “Hunger is a policy CHOICE.” As in, this is not a situation where there wasn’t another option, Republicans CHOSE this.

3. She talked about how, when she was younger, she was on SNAP herself. And that’s not the last time I heard that in this briefing.

4. 39% of those who receive SNAP are children. So whenever anyone says that those who use SNAP brought it on themselves, just tell them that.

5. “A country that can afford bombs but not breakfast has lost its way.” That is probably my favorite quote of the day, though they are other good ones too.

6. The contingency fund that you keep hearing about was set up for this exact situation, that’s literally why it exists, so saying that they can’t be used for this is a lie.

   To get a bit into the weeds, for the past two years, the appropriations bills have added 3b to the fund. This year, some of those funds were used to help Puerto Rico, but there’s still about 5b left, more than enough for SNAP.

   And we know they know this because on Sept 30 there was a whole webpage with a 50 page document detailing this. Thanks to the WayBack Machine, we still have it, but if you go to the actual webpage, it says “page not found”

7. Those kicked off of SNAP will also be kicked off other programs. There’s a lot of things tied to SNAP, like free school lunch, for instance. So it’s not just SNAP these families are losing.

Rep Luz Rivas (CA-29)

1. Ran into Mike Johnson today and told him all about what her district is going through right now. It’s a reminder that just because we don’t see everything our reps are doing, it doesn’t mean they’re not doing the things we want them to be.

2. 1 in 5 households in her district are on SNAP. That’s a number that really puts the whole thing into perspective.

3. She also specifically mentioned that funding SNAP keeps “people with disabilities from going hungry.” This felt like an important thing to highlight.

Rep Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01)

1. She explained how mutual aid support and state funding is not remotely sustainable when it comes to SNAP. The infrastructure just isn’t there at the state level, so even for states that are helping out, it won’t last that long, especially because as Rep Hayes explained later, the federal government refuses to reimburse the states for the first time ever. So, for anyone who asks, why this doesn’t prove that the state should have just been doing it all along, this is your answer.

2. She was on food stamps when she was younger. The third example I heard of that today.

3. SNAP and School Meals are two of the most successful programs to stop child hunger in the world. And keeping the focus on kids is a great way to make it much harder to argue against.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (NM-01)

1. “We are on the precipice of a wholly manufactured food and healthcare crisis.” The key word being “manufactured,” another way of saying, they are choosing to be this utterly evil.

2. This morning Speaker Johnson straight up said if they pay for SNAP “Chuck Schumer and the radicals” will they their way. Which is basically saying if we feed children it might help the Dems.

3. New Mexico will be okay, for now, because their Dem leadership is protecting their constituents. This is why voting matters.

4. Sen John Thune wouldn’t even let Sen Ben Ray Lujan’s Keep SNAP and WIC Funded ACT of 2025 come to the floor, and she said that Thune threw a fit.

5. She also introduced the SNAP Back Act in the pro forma session yesterday, which obviously went nowhere, cause Republicans really just don’t care.

6. “Somebody in the White House decided they were gonna use food as a weapon, the website being removed is proof of that.”

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07)

1. “Instead of governing from a place of care and concern, he governs from a place of contempt.”

2. Whenever she visits schools, she always makes sure to visit the school nurses. They are some of the most important and most under appreciated faculty at a school. She visited two schools this past week, and she asked what the number 1 issue the students face is. Both nurses said “hunger.”

3. “The same people who created cruel work requirements to get food are not showing up to work”

4. “Being the working poor is not a character flaw”

5. Over 1m people in MA are on SNAP. That’s around 1/7 of the entire state. That’s around 100k households. These numbers going hungry feel truly incomprehensible.

Rep Chrissy Houlahan (PA-06)

1. When she was a high school chemistry teacher, 95% of her students were on SNAP or some other form of food assistance.

2. 1.2 million vets rely on SNAP to put food on their table.

3. It’s almost Veteran’s Day. How can these vets literally not be able to put food on their table on the very day that’s meant to honor them???

4. 13% of those currently in uniform rely on SNAP, and Biden raised the pay for junior service members, but Trump has been reversing that

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And that’s the summary of my meetings today. I hope these is a helpful visual of how much our Dems really are fighting for us and do care.

If you made it to the end of this post comment “Thank you Ariella” and maybe also possibly consider supporting me monetarily in some way if you can and aren’t already? I am getting this out while feeling very sickly (in a chronically ill way) and it’s taken up way more of my energy than I expected. But I’m glad I’m getting it out all the same.

No series tomorrow cause, well, I still feel like crap, but also, it’s Halloween and that seems like a waste of my time, seeing as I expect my views to be tanking. But I will be posting various short posts throughout the day on my socials.

Remember, our voices are our superpower, but only when we use them!