And who helped Mr. Cruz go to Washington? Verizon Wireless and AT&T. Both telecom giants contributed thousands of dollars to his 2012 Senate campaign.

On top of that, Verizon has contributed $220,600 and AT&T a whopping $1,093,000 since 2009 to members of the House and Senate Tea Party Caucuses, who have pushed Republicans in Congress to hostage-taking extremism.

At CREDO, we don't fund radical right politicians like Ted Cruz—we fight them. We fight through our powerhouse network of 3 million activists at CREDO Action. Over the past week, we rallied more than 13,000 of our activists to call Republicans and demand that they vote against the shutdown. And another 9,000 called Democrats, urging them not to cave to outrageous Republican demands.

We also donate millions of dollars each year to nonprofit groups working for progressive change. Since 1985, we've raised $75 million for groups like Planned Parenthood, Democracy Now! and 350.org.

The more members we have, the harder we can fight back against extremists like Ted Cruz.