October 6, 2025
Dear Friends,
Last week, funding for the federal government expired. While my Democratic colleagues and I spent months making every effort to keep critical services up and running for families and fighting to protect health care benefits for millions of Americans, Republicans were not interested in joining us in that effort.
In fact, most Republicans did not even bother to show up in Washington last week to work out a budget that meets the needs of families. And President Trump seems dead set on making this shutdown as painful as possible for working people — threatening to fire tens of thousands of federal employees and even commenting, “a lot of good can come from shutdowns.”
The American people are now paying the price for Republicans’ failure to govern — with thousands of federal employees being fired, furloughed, or forced to work without pay and millions more Americans facing massive health care premium hikes or even the total loss of their health care coverage.
With that in mind, I’m hosting a virtual Town Hall event this Wednesday, October 8th at 7:00 PM to answer your questions about the GOP shutdown. If you want to know more about how the shutdown affects you, or how Democrats are fighting to protect your health care and rein in the lawlessness of this administration, you can join me live on Wednesday at www.youtube.com/reppaultonko!
Want to submit your question for the Town Hall? Visit the link below to complete a short survey and tell me what you’d like to know.
[Click above image to open survey in web browser]
If you have further questions about how exactly this shutdown will impact your family and your community, I’ve created a webpage to provide information and resources for you. That webpage can be accessed HERE.
My offices will also remain open and ready to serve you throughout the duration of this government shutdown. If you have any questions or need any assistance with a federal agency, please don’t hesitate to contact my office.
For further updates, be sure to follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, or X to keep up with the work I’m doing on your behalf.
As always, thank you for reading.
Your friend,
