The first time I voted was after coming back to the States in 2014; I readily admit that I didn’t actually understand how important voting really was until my own family was in the crosshairs. It’s been blue since the day I registered.

Aaaaand he gave up trying for that particular outcome. Because of course he did.

I hope @schumer.senate.gov is paying close attention tonight. THIS is how you stand up for people. THIS is how you fight for your constituents.

THIS is leadership.

But it was a couple of years before then that I first heard him speak at a rally in Newark. It was the first political event I’d ever attended, and I left that building fired up in a way that’s hard to quantify. That was, what, half an hour? And I still think about it.

We got to meet the senator back in 2018 on one of our trips to DC with our @littlelobbyists.bsky.social crew. He was warm and kind and genuinely interested in our little family and Ethan’s healthcare story.

You never forget the screams of the mother of a baby too young to be vaxxed who died as a result of an exposure from an antivaxxer’s child.

Ich werd’s nie verstehen können, warum so viele Leute Sozialhilfeprogrammen hassen.

I wish I didn’t have to. But I will keep doing it if I can open at least one person’s eyes. 🩵

So when you hear them talking about cutting funding and trashing #Medicaid? It’s not just numbers. It’s people.

And people matter.

It feels so obvious to me that this is what’s best for kids like June, the being in their own homes and having their siblings to play with and being part of the family lives they’re born into. When I say that #Medicaid matters, it’s because it does. It matters to every single June out there.