PJALS meets with Senator Maria Cantwell’s staff
By Fitz, PJALS Steering Committee member and former YALPista
On January 13th we met with Senator Maria Cantwell’s Eastern Washington staffer *blank i forgot his name oh no* . We requested information on the following questions, the first one being why did she vote no on the recent prescription drug legislation. We were informed that this legislation was actually an amendment to the bill that would repeal the ACA and lacked provisions for FDA approval. Her staffer said that in general Senator Cantwell does in fact support lowering prescription drug costs. She receives one of the lowest dollar amounts from pharmaceutical companies and he stressed that over 90% of the Senator’s campaign donation base are not big corporate donors. Ultimately she opposes the bill as a whole that would repeal the ACA anyway. We also asked about accessibility of communication because one of our members had been told they couldn’t leave phone messages with the D.C. office. He assured us that was probably a simple mistake or misunderstanding and that leaving phone messages with him is always encouraged and that is what staffers are there to do. We also asked why she was silent on the issue of DAPL to which he said he would have to talk with the senator and get back to us. We gave him the names of the Trump cabinet appointees that PJALS most opposes particularly Sessions for Attorney General and Tillerson (former executive at Exxon) for Secretary of state with special mentions of Carson, Devoss for DOE and Mattis for DOD.