1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

If Democrats win control of Congress this fall, you must act decisively and without half-measures to reverse the damage Russell Vought and RFK Jr. have done to public health, biomedicine, and science. Use reconciliation, tie provisions to must-pass bills, and seriously consider eliminating the filibuster if that's what it takes. Starting negotiations from a position of compromise with this GOP means you've already lost. The specifics matter. Vought is using an Executive Order to seize control over NIH grant funding after Congress blocked his broader power grab. RFK Jr. has gutted the US Preventive Services Task Force and packed it with cronies, threatening the statutory requirement that insurers cover highly rated preventive services — mammograms, colonoscopies, PrEP — without cost sharing. These aren't policy disagreements. They are deliberate attacks on the infrastructure that keeps Americans alive. When Democrats have gavels, use them. Subpoena documents. Haul Vought and RFK Jr. before committees. Consider impeachment. Covid killed over a million Americans and it was treated as a national emergency. What these two men are doing is a slower catastrophe, but it is a catastrophe. The response has to match the scale of the damage.