1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

I am asking you to look beyond the politics and look directly at what is happening to the government we all depend upon. Russell Vought is not simply another administration official carrying out orders. He was one of the architects of Project 2025 and now heads the Office of Management and Budget—the office with enormous authority over federal agencies, their budgets, their regulations, and their workforce. He has advocated a fundamental restructuring of government that diminishes the career professionals who provide the expertise and continuity our country depends upon. (National Women’s Law Center (https://nwlc.org/russell-vought-the-project-2025-architect-and-omb-nominee-coming-for-our-democracy/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)⁠) I recently watched HEIST, an Emmy-nominated documentary that puts human faces on what this dismantling has meant for the people who actually do the work of government. It isn’t a political talking-points video. It is an important firsthand record of what happens to dedicated public servants when institutions are deliberately weakened. I am asking you to spend 40 minutes and watch this important expose: https://youtu.be/EEWc4K3WoZM?is=XGOG1eNi3S8BN7uB Please watch it—not as a Democrat or Republican, but as an elected representative entrusted with protecting the institutions of the United States. Once those institutions and the experienced people who operate them are gone, rebuilding them will be extraordinarily difficult. Please watch HEIST. Then ask yourself whether this is the government we want to leave to our children.