http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=127689In less than one week, more than 100,000 Americans have signed their names to a petition demanding that lawmakers resist using "reconciliation" to ram a government takeover of America's health-care system through Congress – and those signatures will be delivered directly to lawmakers Tuesday.
FreedomWorks launched its "No Reconciliation" petition on March 6. It has already collected thousands of signatures to hand deliver during its March 16 rally called the "People's Surge Against Obamacare 2.0." The group is urging Americans to sign their names before the petition is presented.
"We the undersigned ask all senators to respect Senate tradition and resist using inappropriate 'reconciliation' rules to pass the health-care legislation on narrow partisan lines," the petition states. "The traditional 60 vote threshold is meant to avoid the tyranny of the majority and is why the Senate is called the most deliberative body in the world."
Adam Brandon of FreedomWorks told WND, "Reconciliation was invented as a budgetary process to make it easier to lower deficits. It was a streamlined method used for spending bills that were going to lower deficits. They are claiming that this bill will lower deficits. This bill does nothing to hold spending in line."
NBC reported that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wrote a letter to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell saying he will use the reconciliation process to pass part of the reform bill, therefore preventing Republicans from filibustering. Reconciliation would push the bill through the Senate with 51 votes instead of 60.
"We plan to use the regular budget reconciliation process that the Republican caucus has used many times," Reid wrote in his letter. "Keep in mind that reconciliation will not exclude Republicans from the legislative process."
But Brandon accused Democrats of "abusing the process."
"This bill is so damn unpopular that this is the only way they can get something through," he said. "What we're saying is listen to the will of the people. They want reform, but this bill is not what people want. It's abusing the process, and it's abusing the will of the voter."
Brandon urged Americans to sign the petition and include comments and zip codes. FreedomWorks will deliver the petition results directly to lawmakers and ensure comments from constituents reach each person's own representative.
"For activists who are from a district in Pennsylvania we'll be able to go in and bring all the comments from Pennsylvania and leave them with Sen. Arlen Specter," he explained. "We're going to make sure these peoples' voices get heard on the hill."
Tea partiers will also "surge" on Capitol Hill Tuesday as a show of opposition to the Democrats' health-care reform. FreedomWorks is planning a March 16 rally called the "People's Surge Against Obamacare 2.0" outside the Cannon House office building located at Independence Ave. SE and New Jersey SE. The group will rally from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. People will be bused in from various parts of the country.
"We'll probably have at least 1,000 if not more people coming in to this event," FreedomWorks' director of federal and state campaigns, Brendan Steinhauser, told WND. "We're telling people to go right into the three House office buildings: Cannon, Longworth and Rayburn. Find your congressmen, whether they are in the cafeteria, their offices, in the halls or hiding under their desks, and tell them to vote no. It's very simple."
He added, "We'll help direct traffic. Come and deliver your message to Congress."
Steinhauser is also urging citizens to visit district offices and organize local town-hall meetings this month.
He said FreedomWorks personnel will be on the street corner in front of Cannon building handing out maps of office locations and copies of petitions so people can take them to their representative on Tuesday.
"It'll be interesting to see what Nancy Pelosi does," he added. "Last time she told them all to run and hide."
Topic: Tea partiers to 'surge' Capitol Hill (Read 1067 times)