No, this isn’t an April Fools joke. I’m genuinely pleased with the representation I have at the local, state, and national level. Perfectly pleased? Of course not. But disappointments are pretty rare.
Take, for example, the recent release of the Secular Coalition for America report cards for the House and the Senate.
Representative Keith Ellison: A
I am not generally as fond of pro-business Democrat Klobuchar as I am of my more progressive elected representatives, but in this case, it only took not sponsoring a bill to go from an A to a B. There was less nonsense overall in the Senate last year.
How did I get so lucky? Well, some of it is the “luck” of living in an arty city with a huge queer population where everyone bikes everywhere as many months of the year as possible. That really only explains Ellison, though. The rest has been paying attention to political races, donating and volunteering where possible, and talking to people about my political choices.
The Secular Coalition would like to make the last part of that easier. Here’s what they’re asking:
There were some improvements over our 2011 and 2009 Report Cards, with more U.S. Representatives earning an “A” grade. And for the first time, three Republicans Senators scored a “B”. But overall, we still have a lot of work to do — 62 percent of Representatives and 58 percent of Senators scored an “F”.
That’s unacceptable.
The SCA is working to combat this with a multi-pronged approach—educating lawmakers, supporting legislation based on reason and science and combating legislation based on religion, and educating voters.
Not only have we graded each and every Member of Congress so that you can hold them accountable at the ballot box, this summer we will be releasing over 500 Voter Guides, one for every U.S. House, U.S. Senate and Gubernatorial race.
This is a massive undertaking and we need your help. You’ve participated in our action alerts. You’ve been actively spreading the world on social media. Now we need your help once more. Can you give $5, $10, $15—or whatever you can—now to help educate voters this fall? This election is going to be a big one and we need all hands on deck.
Part of being your voice in Washington is assessing who we can count on, who we need to better educate and informing you on who deserves your votes. But we can’t do it without you. Make your voice heard now.
If you’re happy with your elected representatives, and they’re secure in their races or not up for re-election, this might be a good way to spend a few political dollars this year. At the very least, take a look at how the representatives up for re-election scored, and make sure other people who care about these things see this information too.
Or, if you are unhappy with your elected representatives but live somewhere like Texas and nothing you can do will make a difference locally, donate so that at least someone, somewhere, has a chance to get decent representation.
All I could think of from this title was that it was going to end with “…like I like my ______: ______ and ______.
Who here can fill in the missing terms? I’m too tired.