{"id":48010,"date":"2021-03-11T15:38:10","date_gmt":"2021-03-11T22:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hickenlooper-quotes-from-letters-during-delay-tactic-in-u-s-senate\/"},"modified":"2021-03-11T22:38:10","modified_gmt":"2021-03-11T22:38:10","slug":"hickenlooper-quotes-from-letters-during-delay-tactic-in-u-s-senate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hickenlooper-quotes-from-letters-during-delay-tactic-in-u-s-senate\/","title":{"rendered":"Hickenlooper quotes from letters during delay tactic in U.S. Senate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Hickenlooper\"
Hickenlooper<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

While the latest COVID-19 relief bill was being read aloud in the Senate chambers, U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper posted excerpts of letters from his constituents on Twitter.<\/p>\n

The letters, which were sent to his state office in Colorado, revealed a helplessness in people struggling with the consequences of the pandemic and a lack of government aid.<\/p>\n

In some of the letters, Hickenlooper\u2019s constituents asked for monetary aid from the government or improved access to mental health resources during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need cash to pay my bills. I have to choose between food, necessities and medicine,\u201d one letter said. \u201cPlease, send relief now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some letters included detailed, personal stories from people who lost loved ones to COVID-19. Others were from people facing financial strife, unemployment and homelessness as a result of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am going to have to close my doors unless someone can help me \u2026 I am a proud Colorado small business owner, and I want to continue to be one,\u201d another letter said. \u201cPlease, is there anything you can do? Is there someone you know who can help? I am sadly at the end of my rope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of them included urgent pleas for help.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can wait no longer for unemployment. I am homeless now,\u201d one letter said. \u201cMy truck is out of gas and I\u2019m parked on a street. I have two days of food. I already suffer from PTSD, major depression and anxiety. I can\u2019t take it anymore. Help, quickly, please.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper\u2019s livestream on March 4 lasted nearly 30 minutes. He began it while Senate clerks were reading through the 600-page American Rescue Plan Act at the behest of U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are hundreds and hundreds more,\u201d Hickenlooper, D-Colo., said at the end of his livestream. \u201cI hope that this Senate can move beyond the stalling and distractive time wasting and get this COVID relief bill passed once and for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate clerks spent more than 10 hours reading the contents of the American Rescue Plan Act into the record. They began reading it just after 3 p.m. March 4 and finished around 2 a.m. the next day. The act passed the Senate on March 6.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just objected to skipping past the reading of the Democrats\u2019 628-page bill that was just introduced minutes ago,\u201d Johnson wrote in a tweet March 4. \u201cIf they\u2019re going to add nearly $2T to the national debt, at least we should know what\u2019s in the bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

The American Rescue Plan Act would allocate $1.9 trillion to COVID-19 relief, including funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, child care programs, small business assistance, COVID-19 testing and vaccine distribution.<\/p>\n

While the act was in the process of being passed and amendments were being voted on, Hickenlooper tweeted throughout the process, critiquing Republicans\u2019 efforts to slow down the process of passing the act.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepublicans have kept us up all night by delaying much needed COVID relief. But it\u2019ll all be worth it once we finally get it passed,\u201d Hickenlooper said in a tweet. \u201cIt\u2019s been a frustrating 12 hours, but that pales in comparison to the pain Coloradans have endured under this pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grace George is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Excerpts recount stories of unemployment, tragedy caused by COVID-19 pandemic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,481,28,29,1566],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-gov-john-hickenlooper","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-u-s-senate"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48010"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}