Dear Senator Booker,

We are writing to you regarding your recent actions. First, we will tell you a bit about ourselves. We are a couple from Chicago, 24 and 25 years old, and, until recently, big fans of yours.

We’ve never been to New Jersey, actually just once or twice passing through, but we have heard and read about your work as Mayor of Newark, then as a Senator. We believed in you because you seem to have progressive ideas and policies.

We were inspired by your brave testimony against your colleague Senator Jeff Sessions during the Hearing for Attorney General on Wednesday, January 11th. We actually retweeted video of your speech and told our friends about you. We thought of you as a courageous and honest senator with dignity. We thought you could not be bought.

Which is why, when we woke up on Thursday morning, January 12th and read that you and 12 other Democratic Senators had voted down an amendment to a bill that would allow lifesaving pharmaceuticals to be imported from Canada, saving millions of dollars for those who depend on these medications, we were shocked.

As Republicans begin to tear apart the Affordable Care Act, one of the highest priorities for our lawmakers should be making medications affordable for those who need them. We cannot rule any solution out, we must attempt to make medical treatments affordable by any means necessary.

We asked ourselves, ‘what could you have been thinking to vote “nay” on this proposal?’. We searched the news, we asked our friends, we asked professionals in the medical field, and we found no credible reason why an intelligent man such as yourself would vote not to allow importation of much less expensive life saving drugs. We found no reason at all, until we looked into your campaign contributions. That was when we began to understand what motivates you. According to MapLight.org, which keeps track of campaign contributions, between 2010 and 2016, you have received more money from the pharmaceutical industry than all but two other Senators in the US Congress.

We promise that until you and the 12 other Democratic Senators, named here: Bennet (D-CO), Cantwell (D-WA), Carper (D-DE), Casey (D-PA), Coons (D-DE), Donnelly (D-IN), Heinrich (D-NM), Heitkamp (D-ND), Menendez (D-NJ), Murray (D-WA), Tester (D-MT), Warner (D-VA), rectify your wrong to the American people and propose and pass a bill that lowers the cost of pharmaceuticals as much or more than this amendment would have, we will never again support any of you in any way.

Get to Work.

Sincerely,

AJ Taylor

Jackie Herrera