Call your senator

We may have to make a separate page of all the actions that are going to be recommended until we learn whether this will be an unusually awful presidential term with a weak and clueless opposition where calling representatives might make a difference or the beginning of the supranational autocracy that couldn't care less what people want.

The new alert concerns the "Laken Riley Act," already passed by the U.S. House of Representatives (with 48 obliging Democrats). According to Leah Greenburg, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, "This is a bill designed to 1) hand Trump massive new powers to terrorize communities with ZERO oversight and 2) give extremist right-wing judges the power to set policy for all of us. Let your Senator know that you oppose it and that you're watching how they vote."

Alas, a new batch of Manchin Dems, including some who were supposed to be the good ones, seem ready to continue helping Republicans remake the country. 

For more information about the bill, check out this article by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. 

The bill, already passed in the House, would hand state attorneys general, like Ken Paxton in Texas, veto power over large swaths of federal immigration policy.

Under a provision of the bill that has gotten little attention, federal courts in places like Texas and Louisiana could hear lawsuits seeking to impose sweeping bans on all visas from countries such as India and China.

Call Senator Baldwin - 608-796-0045 (La Crosse office). And call Ron Johnson, too - 608-240-9629 (Madison office).