The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 passes the House

Wow I'm on a blogging role!

So yesterday, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 219-212. Surprisingly, 8 Republicans voted yes (I wasn't really expecting any...) and 44 Dems voted no. One of these Dems was Harry Mitchell. I believe many reasons culminated to the final decision, but his statement can be read here.

But man, I hated yesterday. As soon as we took the phones off of forward at 9:00 AM, the phones started ringing off the hook. That means people in Arizona were calling at 6:00 in the morning. I'd consider myself a morning person, but calling my congressman to try and convince him to vote a certain way on important legislation is not the first thing to pop into my head when I wake up.

And Jesus Christ, I'm willing to say that at least 96% of the 5 million people that called in yesterday were crazy. I basically had to listen to this all day:

- Global warming is a hoax/isn't real/hasn't been proven.

- This bill will raise my taxes! By $1,500 per family!

- Has the Congressman read the entire bill that is over 1,000 pages long?

- Cap and tax! Cap and tax! Cap and tax!

- If the Congressman doesn't vote this way, I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that he isn't reelected in 2010! We will remember his vote in 2010! (I swear this line was in some script that was circulated, I kept hearing this)

And a few gems that some bitter people wanted to share with me:

- I hope you find a better job

- I hope you and everyone else in your office are out of jobs soon

- I hope you get paid well for this

The phones were literally ringing nonstop. And I have learned a very important lesson. Phone banking your congressperson only helps if you want that particular congressperson's office to not get anything done that day. Several of the staff members were very excited that I had learned this lesson, since they remembered me phone banking with the YDs last semester. I promised that the ASU YDs would never phone bank the Congressman's office again, and they were very happy to hear this.

Well, at least there's health care to look forward to.