Rep. Kilmer Town Hall - Defending Democracy During COVID-19

Okay, I think we're up hey everybody Derek Kilmer here. I hope you've I hope this finds you well obviously a very challenging week for our for our region for our state and for our entire country. there is justifiably a lot of pain and anger out there on top of a public health crisis that has led to the deaths of over a hundred thousand Americans, which is disproportionately affected minority communities last week. A Black American murdered in Minneapolis by a uniformed police officer. it was a horrific act. It was a heartbreaking act obviously it was completely unacceptable act in the days since I've been doing a lot of listening and hearing from African-American leaders and constituents that I have the honor of serving and thinking about how we can take action here in our region that is going to become all the more important obviously, as we've just seen news. Out of Tacoma as well, working to address these concerns and frankly working to address more broadly, the inequities that exist in so many parts of America. I think we have to take action to make the federal government work better for the American people and you know, frankly, part of that is what we had scheduled before any of of this news was focusing on the issue of a money in politics. Frankly, there's too much money. There's too many special interests to little accountability. We know that reducing the role of big money in politics and strengthening ethics rules so that elected officials are working for the public interest and protecting voting rights for every American are things everyone should agree on and things we should be making progress on right now and with this public health crisis and the next election just five months to the day away, there's no time to waste to make reforms. Tonight I am joined by Tiffany Mueller, the President of End Citizens, United and the Let America Vote Action Fund and incredible partner in these efforts to talk about how we can defend our democracy during Covid- 19 and also for both of us to answer some of your questions. So Tiffany Thank you for being here tonight maybe start by just telling folks about in citizens, United and the Latin America Vote Action Fund and the great work that you are all doing. Oh absolutely and thank you so much Congressman it is such an honor to be here with you tonight.