Organizers with NextGen America will send a message to Sen. Chuck Grassley by pigeon mail, they told CNN Monday.
NextGen has hired a carrier pigeon service called “PigeonGram” to deliver the message, which will urge Grassley to delay a vote on a Supreme Court nominee.
The Iowa Republican has yet to comment on whether or not he believes a vote on a nominee should happen this year following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last week.
The plans from NextGen, the progressive youth voter engagement organization founded by businessman Tom Steyer, come after Grassley tweeted about a dead pigeon Friday.
Grassley, who is known to run his own Twitter account, found a dead pigeon on his lawn and tweeted, “If u lost ur pet pidgin /it’s dead in front yard my Iowa farm JUST DISCOVERED here r identifiers Right leg Blue 2020/3089/AU2020/SHE ///LEFT LEG GREEN BAND NO PRINTED INFO. Sorry for bad news.”
“We saw that there was a lot of attention around the pigeon, and we wanted to draw more attention to the issue that we’ve been talking to young people about, which is honoring RBG’s dying wish,” Murphy Burke, an organizer with NextGen in Iowa, told CNN.
NextGen plans to have the message delivered to Grassley at the US Capitol after President Trump announces his Supreme Court pick later this week.
The US Postal Service will help with most of the delivery.
Burke noted that while the message will be in-part delivered by pigeon, the act is mostly symbolic. The message Grassley receives will come in an envelope from PigeonGram, indicating that it was carried in part by a homing pigeon.
“A pigeon cannot really deliver mail in this day and age,” Burke told CNN. “But we like the fact that the envelope will say the message was carried by a homing pigeon.”
In addition to its plans to contact Grassley by pigeon mail, NextGen is urging young people across the country to send messages to their senators to refuse to hold a vote on a Supreme Court nominee until after the November election.
Following Ginsburg’s death, NextGen released new Senate ads in Maine, North Carolina, Iowa and Arizona Saturday highlighting the importance of electing Democrats to the Senate, which could allow them to reclaim the majority.
NextGen’s efforts come as a number of youth led groups work to convince senators to hold off on a Supreme Court nomination vote.
Sunrise Movement, the youth-led climate organization, demonstrated outside the homes of Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Thom Tillis of North Carolina on Monday.
The group plans to target other Republican senators — Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin — as well as potential Supreme Court nominee Barbara Lagoa of Florida later this week.
“We only need four Republicans to do the right thing and stick to the McConnell precedent,” Aracely Jimenez, deputy communications director for Sunrise, said in a statement Monday. “We must do everything in our power to hold vulnerable Republicans and also Senate Democrats accountable in order to prevent an appointment to the bench before Biden is sworn in.”
In the coming days, March For Our Lives, the gun violence prevention organization, plans to demonstrate outside the offices of Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, David Perdue of Georgia, Mitt Romney of Utah and Martha McSally of Arizona.
March For Our Lives is also encouraging participants to get involved virtually by emailing senators using a pre-filled form, text banking, and faxing senator letters, asking them to hold off on a vote.