The following is an unedited original letter I have written to Congress and sent to Senators Van Hollen and Alsobrooks (D-MD) in the hopes that they may read it on the floor for the benefit of all Americans. I am an average everyday American and concerned citizen from Baltimore, MD who, like millions of others, will be directly impacted by the SAVE America Act currently being debated in the Senate.

My only goal with this letter is to achieve liberty through unity. The more people sign this, the more likely it will be that news organizations I have already contacted will pick it up so that these good Senators will see it and want to read it on the floor. If Congress hears this letter, they will no longer be able to ignore the plight of everyday Americans impacted by overreaching government policies and will be more inclined to side with the constituents that they are supposed to represent.

Please sign and share! It does not have to be my own Senators who read it, either--please send a copy of this letter along to your own representatives to encourage them to do the right thing.

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March 17th, 2026

To Members of Congress,

It is with the utmost disappointment that I write this letter to you, Congress, on behalf of women and marginalized people of all genders in the United States of America, pleading once again for equal rights in the face of an administration which refuses to recognize and protect them. One should never have to beg for inalienable human rights—it’s in the name, after all—but here we are yet again for the umpteenth time in both American history and in recent memory.

On October 22nd, 1916, the legendary white-horse-riding American suffragist Inez Milholland’s famous reported last words before her collapse during a speech about then-president Woodrow Wilson’s resistance to allowing women’s suffrage were, “Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?”

After her collapse, she came back to finish this speech and later died. Her endless campaign for women’s suffrage had driven her to exhaustion and affected her health, leading ultimately to her death. She was just that passionate, and other women came to respect that passion and followed her enthusiastically. Women nationwide became inspired to come together to fight even harder for the right to vote, using her slogan in all of their protests until they finally won that right with the passing and ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1919 and 1920, respectively.

Until the 19th Amendment came about, women in America were literally suffering for suffrage (hence the name). Beaten, imprisoned, tortured, raped, force-fed, killed, and pelted with eggs and rotten produce merely for protesting and daring to speak out, these women refused to back down until they got what they were fighting for: equal rights under the Constitution. And after all of these unimaginable sacrifices, they ultimately got it.

As we stand at this terrifying crossroads in American history it is with every ounce of dignity and strength that I can possibly muster, despite a valid fear of potential state retribution, that I must ask every member of Congress to take a long, hard, objective look at themselves today and every day from now on and ask this question of themselves and each other: Are we patriots, or are we puppets?

Patriots who serve the American people and their best interests, or puppets who serve only power and the almighty dollar?

And I must ask, with the powerful spirits of American suffragists like Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and Inez Milholland who came before us standing behind me fuming as I write this and behind the speaker reading this in front of Congress:

Once again, Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?

Must we continue to merely watch and hand-wring as women are slowly stripped of their right to vote, their freedom, their right to bodily autonomy, their right to exist free from discrimination, their right to speak freely, their ability to be taken seriously and seek justice when millions of files supporting their claims are in existence, and so on?

There is supposedly nothing more American than freedom, and yet as I write this, this administration is working harder than ever before to suppress it from all angles at once.

Must we truly step aside and watch it happen?

I believe, dear Congress, dear Americans watching and waiting at home, that we mustn’t.

We must not allow fear to get in the way of preserving American freedom.

We must not allow power to scare us away from seeking and preserving justice.

There is only one way forward for the American people, and that is the unstemmable tide of progress towards true, actual, and legitimate freedom.

The freedom that we were all allegedly promised at this country’s inception, and have been fighting to obtain ever since.

The freedom that free thinkers, journalists, abolitionists, suffragists, civil rights activists, LGBTQ+ activists, immigration rights advocates, and countless human rights groups have historically fought, suffered, and died for over the mere 250 years this country has existed. Yes, countless soldiers have fought and died for America as well, but these everyday citizens too were soldiers of their own movements and heroes in their own right.

And yet their struggles are too easily forgotten these days, in favor of red-white-and-blue fanfare that calls itself patriotism but sells lies, oppression, and forever wars to a populace that was taught to never question it lest they too be labeled unamerican.

Many of the folks sitting in Congress today would not be here if not for these courageous Americans I mentioned previously.

Imagine if you, members of Congress, were no longer allowed to vote due to this proposed discriminatory law masquerading as mere legislation meant to prevent voter fraud.

This administration says that in order to prevent voter fraud (a claim that has been widely debunked over and over since just before Obama, the first Black president, was elected), they seek to disallow many people of marginalized genders—the largest group among them being married cisgender women!—who happen to have changed their names, many Native Americans who cannot access proper documentation, and all impoverished Americans from voting, among others.

How does preventing regular Americans from voting in American elections make sense? Unless, of course, your goal is something other than preventing voter fraud.

How does any of it make any sense, honestly?

Especially when the majority of that latter category is made up of rural Americans, the GOP’s bread and butter. I lived in rural Minnesota for eight years prior to moving to Maryland, and I can tell you that people there will not continue to accept this level of sheer disrespect and disregard for their freedom and well-being. There is nothing that these folks despise more than government overreach that affects their freedom, as we are seeing there every day in many towns and cities throughout the beautiful state of Minnesota.

The average passport costs between $130-165 and can take weeks or months to arrive, depending on if it is new or a renewed passport. (Meaning they may not even receive it in time to vote). To the average American family living paycheck to paycheck who typically doesn’t have the funds for international travel at all let alone even sometimes, that is an absurd amount to have to pay in order to be able to do something as simple as vote. A thing which has been largely affordable for most Americans to do in recent years, aside from many marginalized, disabled, and impoverished people who were already struggling to obtain a regular ID (let alone a REAL ID) before this, may not have access to transportation to a polling place, etc. If the SAVE Act passes, it will be impossible for many to vote or register to vote at all.

There are also many Americans who, even if they had the money, might struggle with the steps required to obtain a passport, register to vote, or vote in person due to disability. (And no, the vast majority of disabled Americans factually do not receive disability payments or other government-provided entitlements including transportation assistance, due to how unforgiving and impossible this system can be for them to navigate at every turn. It’s why most never even apply and choose to suffer in silence instead, because the system was never meant to help them in the ways that they need).

How is any of this different from poll taxes and literacy tests levied against Black Americans during the Jim Crow era, or Latina women in Puerto Rico in the 1920s and 1930s?

The answer? It’s not.

It is with these recent historical events in mind that I must implore Congress to please vote NO on the SAVE America Act and to work every single day from this day forward to ensure that freedom for all Americans and freedom from human rights abuses are at the forefront of their minds in all of their decisions moving forward.

Don’t let the lives and deaths of Inez Milholland, Lucy Burns, Alice Paul, Black voters killed during Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other Civil Rights Movement activists,  Marsha P. Johnson, Alex Pretti, Renee Good, and others who championed inalienable human rights for all Americans be in vain.

Don’t forget that all of you have mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers who benefited from and championed the causes of revolutionary and inspiring Americans fighting for women’s suffrage. Don’t let their struggles be in vain, also, because without them you would not be here either.

And do not ever forget the horrors of McCarthyism when this administration ask you to look at anyone who opposes its policies as terrorists, rioters, socialists, communists, and criminals. The most unamerican thing that any American can possibly do is question the Americanness of another American based on their beliefs in human rights, justice, checks and balances, and political accountability. These are the values on which our system was supposed to be built.

I expect that by the end of this speech, someone in this administration or in the media will have used one or more of these words to describe me as well despite the fact that I am none of these things, have not organized, and have done nothing at all except write a single lone speech begging Congress to please remember the humanity of American voters when deciding on policies that may upend all of our lives.

It is up to you, Congress, and the courts to prevent this kind of injustice from harming innocent voters like me who dare to speak up on behalf of all Americans affected by harmful proposed policies such as these. Freedom of speech, free elections, and freedom of political beliefs are at the crux of our entire belief system in America, and if we no longer have those, then I must ask Congress: what does that make us?

We must not wait any longer for liberty. We must seize it and protect it with our own hands, just as our ancestors did before us. Together today, we can stop the SAVE Act and other harmful pieces of legislation that threaten the very fabric of American society, and we can ensure a brighter and freer future for all Americans of every gender tomorrow.

Thank you.

Respectfully and Without Regret,

S.J. Dill
Concerned Citizen
Politically Unaffiliated Free Thinker
Human Rights Supporter
History Enthusiast
Writer and Voter of Conscience
Bachelor of Science in Mass Communication