An Open Letter to U.S. Senators

Dear U.S. Senators,

You are busy people so I will keep this short.

I write to ask you to contemplate a single question:

What motivated you to become a U.S. Senator?

Please fill in the blank:

“I ran for the U.S. Senate because I believe in______________.”

What do you believe in? Each of you has principles, values, policies that you believed in enough to do the hard work of running for the U.S. Senate, and then to do the difficult work of serving as a Senator.

I am confident that very few of you would say, “I ran for the U.S. Senate because I believe in Donald Trump.” Sure, a few of you might, but I am addressing the majority, not the few.

The rest of the world already knows that Donald Trump is not your preferred leader. I genuinely believe that none of you has a preference for a convicted felon, an adjudicated sexual assaulter, a serial adulterer, a person who makes fun of disabled people, a person whose family was banned from running a charity, a person who calls military heroes suckers and losers, a person who wanted to withhold disaster aid to states that did not vote for him until talked out of it by his staff, a person who Senator McConnell said was morally responsible for January 6th. We know that being a rubber stamp for Donald Trump was not your motivation for becoming a U.S. Senator.

But now that Trump has been elected it is time for Senators to do what the Senate was created to do: Serve as a check on the Executive branch.

Now is the time to remind yourself why you ran for office in the first place. Now is the time to remember the purpose of the Senate in the constitutional order. Now is the time to think about the long term good of the nation whose citizens you represent.

Now is the time to show courage and do what is necessary.

The nation needs independent and courageous Senators to do the right thing.

May each of you find the wisdom and strength to meet this moment.