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Dear <Representative/Senator name>,
The federal government’s response to Katrina was the biggest domestic failure of our time. Understanding the White House's role in that failure is critical—both to ensure that things are done differently in the future and to do right by Katrina survivors.
After the hurricane, Senator Joseph Lieberman declared that the White House was stonewalling an investigation into its response to Katrina and urged the Senate Committee on Homeland Security to subpoena the White House for important documents. Now, as Chair of that committee, Senator Lieberman has decided to drop the investigation, and no other elected official is stepping up to exercise oversight over the White House.
When there's a failure in government— especially a massive failure like the one we saw with Katrina—Congress must investigate what went wrong. Eighteen months after thousands of Americans were left to fend for themselves as Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, there still hasn't been a real investigation into what happened. The Bush administration hasn't had to face oversight under the Republican-controlled Congress, and the Democrats have promised to bring accountability back to Washington. A failure to investigate one of the major disasters of Bush's presidency would be a clear sign that the Democrats aren't prepared to live up to their promises.
As Joe Lieberman said last year, "Nothing less than the future preparedness of our nation to respond to a terrorist attack or another catastrophic natural disaster is at stake."
I urge you to push immediately for an investigation into the White House response to Katrina.
Sincerely,
[your name here]
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