
Katie Hooper is a member of IEB’s Governance Committee and is a co-lead of the MoC Team Lee (CA-13).
IEB members and activists from Alameda4Impeachment and others participated in a November 15 phone call with Representative Barbara Lee about impeachment and a few other matters. Although she had to take a couple of breaks to vote on the House floor, Rep. Lee was very forthcoming and couldn’t have been more grateful for our collective passion and activism.
Lee did not agree to sign the current impeachment articles by Representatives Cohen and Gutierrez, but only because she said she’s working with her colleagues (even across the aisle) on a more robust set of articles, and this takes time. She seemed to understand that we want her publicly stating her support for the effort, but she really wants it to be with a larger consensus.
The most intense part of the call came at the end, when Lee said how grounding and moving it is to take a break from the constant politics of House votes to actually talk to her constituents, and told us that she felt reinvigorated for the upcoming vote on the tax (scam) bill. She told us that her aides Josh and Lisa, with whom IEB’s MoC Team Lee meet and correspond on a regular basis, update her constantly with our questions and concerns, and that we should keep bringing things up that we care about. We are hoping to meet with her staff after the holiday to talk about policy vs. grassroots efforts.
I had the chance to thank Rep. Lee, on behalf of our team and everyone at IEB, for all her hard work in the resistance.
By Katie Hooper