Tag Archives: politics

In this week’s address, the President celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act by underscoring the importance of one of the most fundamental rights of our democracy — that all of us are created equal and that each of us deserves a voice.

WATCH HERE

West Wing Week: “The Measure of a Leader”

Last week, the President announced a new historic action to cut harmful carbon pollution, advocated for the Iran deal, celebrated his 54th birthday, and inaugurated a new class of Mandela fellows.

WATCH HERE

Business Schools Come Together to Expand Opportunities for Women in Business

Last Wednesday, the Council on Women and Girls and the Council of Economic Advisers hosted a convening focused on opportunities for business schools and the business community to work together to ensure that students are trained to lead in the 21st century and to expand opportunities for women in business.

The Buckeye Squeeze

08/11/2015 Nativegrl77

By CAP Action War Room

Ohio’s Middle Class Is Hurting, And GOP Policies Will Just Make It Worse

In a little more than 24 hours, 10 Republican men will take the stage in Cleveland for the first GOP primary debate. More than likely, most candidates will claim they are champions of Ohio’s middle class.

It is true that Ohio’s working families need a champion, as a new CAP Action report indicates. The Cleveland Plain Dealer discusses the report’s key points ahead of debate night, highlighting that that the median household income in Ohio has dropped by more than 6% in the last 30 years. As the Plain Dealer states, “only three states fared worse” than Ohio in terms of median household income.

However, another new CAP Action report shows that Republican rhetoric on how they value working Ohioans is far different than reality. Actually, many GOP candidates supporting policies that benefit the wealthy at the expense of the Ohio middle class.

In short, GOP candidates’ policies would hurt Ohio’s working families. Here are a few key examples:

Conservative tax policies overwhelming benefit the wealthiest Americans at the expense of working families. For example, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rick Perry have all called for eliminating or drastically reducing the capital gains tax, a policy that would benefit 92% of Ohio taxpayers who made $1 million or more in 2012, but would have almost no impact on Ohio’s middle class.

Conservative policies make it harder to create good-paying jobs. Right-to-work laws, like the one signed by Gov. Scott Walker, are associated with average wages that are 3.1% lower than wages in states without right-to-work laws. Ohio governor and GOP candidate John Kasich pushed anti-worker legislation, which was rejected by Ohio voters, that would have likely lowered incomes and hurt job growth.

GOP candidates oppose policies that help families balance work and home. Women are the sole, primary, or co-breadwinners in more than 68 percent of Ohio families, yet Republican candidates oppose key policies such as paid sick days, paid family and medical leave, equal pay, and access to childcare. Gov. Walker and Gov. Jindal signed pre-emption laws, preventing cities in their states from requiring paid sick leave.

GOP governors ignore runaway tuition costs. Under Gov. Jindal and Gov. Perry, students faced exploding costs. College tuition and fees grew 44 percentage points in Louisiana and 69.3 percentage points more in Texas, respectively, more than in Ohio.

BOTTOM LINE: GOP candidates may claim they will help the middle class, but their policies benefit the wealthy while hurting job growth and making it harder for families to balance work and home and afford college for their children. With a falling median income, Ohio’s middle class cannot afford the choices offered by this class of Republican candidates.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Mayor Rauner … seems to be against his constituents

08/10/2015 Nativegrl77

Rauner suspends $26 million in social services, public health grants

Apr 5, 2015

By KaiElz

Gov. Bruce Rauner’s office worked with the Departments of Human Services and Public Health “to see which grants could be suspended and prioritized essential services.”

Associated Press

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner suspended $26 million in social services and public health grants as part of his push to whittle away at a $1.6 billion shortfall in the current state budget.

The Republican’s office released a list of targeted programs late Friday that included funding to pay for the funerals and burials of public-assistance recipients, smoking cessation, teen programs, autism, and HIV and AIDS programs, among other things.

Rauner also froze $3.4 million in funding for immigrant integration assistance as part of ongoing efforts to keep the state rolling through the June 30 end of the fiscal year.

Rauner’s office said the check-writing halt – he also interrupted $180 million in parkland grants in March – is necessary because the expenditures were based on the assumption a temporary income tax would be extended past January, but it wasn’t after Rauner won the election.

“Part of the solution to solving the inherited $1.6 billion budget hole without raising taxes or increasing borrowing is to continue to evaluate the current fiscal year’s budget,” Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly said. “The governor’s office worked with agencies to see which grants could be suspended and prioritized essential services.”

The cuts will save the state $21.8 million in Department of Human Services Grants and $4.5 million in unexpended funding through the Department of Public Health. The suspensions only affect this year’s funding, Kelly said.

But there’s always another price – this one paid for by constituents who, as soon as Monday morning, will be told through closed doors there’s no more money to help them.

Breandan Magee, senior director of programs for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said dozens of organizations assisted 102,000 legal immigrants in 2014 with applications for citizenship, English as a Second Language classes and health and nutrition programs for low-income immigrants.

“There are 299 jobs across 60 different immigrant-services agencies at risk” with funding ceasing, Magee said Saturday. “There are workshops scheduled for citizenship, applications for citizenship pending, ESL classes hallway through.”

Immigrant integration programs – which Rauner proposed eliminating entirely in the 2016 budget – will forfeit nearly half of their $6.7 million budget, according to figures provided by the governor’s office. Magee said he hopes the state will cover expenses he’s already incurred.

A copy of Friday’s letter from Human Services, obtained by The Associated Press, notifies the recipient to “immediately cease incurring additional obligations, costs or spending any further grant funds.” Agencies must submit records of all spending for the year. Jimi Orange of Children’s Home and Aid faces the unenviable task of telling up to 25 of the 100 children in Chicago’s impoverished West Englewood neighborhood they can’t come to Earle Elementary School for after-class tutoring and cultural activities because the state has recalled the remaining $3.1 million of Teen REACH money for kids ages 7 to 17.

“The staff’s concern is how to tell the families? What to tell the kids? How to tell the kids?” Orange said. “These are kids who already have abandonment issues, trust issues.”

Parkland-related grants Rauner has suspended this year include $90 million for park facility construction, $56 million for local governments to purchase open space for future parkland, and $30 million for museum capital-construction grants.

Grants suspended by Rauner include:

DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES

Funeral & Burial, $6.9 million

Rauner’s ‘turnaround budget’ has cuts called ‘reckless,’ ‘wrong priorities’

You be the judge. Look at the list below and decide if grants for the Homeless or for HIV assistance, Addiction prevenetion, and so on are reckless.

Immigrant Integration Services, $3.4 million

Welcoming Centers, $191,300

ARC Lifespan, $118,100

Best Buddies, $250,000

Autism, $1 million

Group Home Loans, $20,000

Compulsive Gambling $406,000

Westside Health, $94,200

Addiction Prevention, $1.6 million

Assistance for Homeless, $300,000

Community Services, $2 million

Teen REACH, $3.1 million

Coalition F/Tech Assist-Child, $250,000

For Children’s Health Program, $231,600

Outreach to Individuals to Engage in Services, $380,700

Regions Special Consumer Support, $277,700

SMRF Training, $420,100

Transportation, $43,900

DD Latino Outreach, $87,500

Microboard Development and Outreach, $47,500

Epilepsy, $514,700

DHS TOTAL: $21.8 million

DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES

Brothers and Sisters United Against HIV/AIDS, $789,800

Increasing Access to Health Care-Wellness on Wheels, $180,000

Wellness on Wheels – Mobile Administration 2015, $135,000

Illinois Tobacco Quitline, $3.1 million

Project Safe Sleep Education and Outreach, $250,000

MidAmerica Regional Public Health Leadership Institute, $75,000

IDPH TOTAL: $4.5 million

DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES*

Park and Recreational Facility Construction, $89.5 million

Open Space Lands Acqusition and Development, $56.3 million

Museum Capital Grants, $30.4 million

Bike Paths, Mud-to-Parks, others, $2.6 million

IDNR TOTAL: $178.8 million

*Grants suspended in March

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Better Than Billionaires

07/30/2015 Nativegrl77

By CAP Action War Room

Automatic Voter Registration Allows More Americans’ Voices To Be Heard

“Who’s your billionaire?” Now more than ever, any serious presidential candidate needs to have an answer for this question. Over the weekend, we found out who the answer for Senator Marco Rubio is: Norman Braman, a billionaire auto dealer from Miami.

Braman isn’t just supporting Rubio’s White House bid to the expected tune of $10 million; he has been a key figure in Rubio’s professional and personal life for many years. Here is the New York Times report:

As Mr. Rubio has ascended in the ranks of Republican politics, Mr. Braman has emerged as a remarkable and unique patron. He has bankrolled Mr. Rubio’s campaigns. He has financed Mr. Rubio’s legislative agenda. And, at the same time, he has subsidized Mr. Rubio’s personal finances, as the rising politician and his wife grappled with heavy debt and big swings in their income.

To state the obvious: The increasing influence of big money in politics from donors like Norman Braman, the Koch Brothers, and others, drowns out the voices of everyday Americans in the political process. There are a number of ways to combat this threat to democracy; one big target for reformers is to overturn the judicial decisions like Citizens United that have opened the floodgates to unlimited spending on elections. That is a critical fight.

Here is another important way to make it easier for all citizens to have their voices heard: make voting more accessible. One of the most progressive methods for doing that is called Automatic Voter Registration (AVR), a system by which states would integrate information from existing government databases — such as departments of motor vehicles, the Postal Service, revenue agencies, and others — to compile and update the voting rolls with information that they already collect. Oregon just became the first state in the country to implement this type of system, and it expects to add 300,000 people to voter rolls as a result.

Now, a new report from the Center for Popular Democracy outlines some of the transformative impacts AVR would have across the country. If Automatic Voter Registration were adopted in all states, it would potentially result in 55 million new voters added to the rolls.

AVR would result in the registration of currently underrepresented communities as well, including approximately:

17 million new Black and Latino registrants
31 million registrants under age 45
29 million registrants with an annual income of $50,000 or less

While most voting rights news focuses on the concerted efforts by conservatives to suppress the vote, especially among disadvantaged communities, automatic voter registration is gaining momentum. California, which just advanced its own AVR bill late last month, could be the next state to take this important step.

BOTTOM LINE: With our campaign finance laws continuing to loosen, millionaires and billionaires will only increase the amount of influence they exert in our political process. But there are important steps being taken to counter them: policies like automatic voter registration would register millions of voters, raise voter turnout, and make our democracy healthier and more representative of its citizens.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

A License To Kill

07/30/2015 Nativegrl77

By CAP Action War Room

As Florida Governor, Jeb Bush Pioneered The Nation’s First “Stand Your Ground” Law

This Friday, Jeb Bush is scheduled to address the National Urban League, one of the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organizations. He is going to be on the hot seat – and deservedly so. As Governor of Florida, Jeb worked hand in hand with the NRA to pioneer the nation’s first Stand Your Ground law, brought to national attention when George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. The results, detailed in a new CAP Action report, have been devastating. Here are a few of the findings outlined in the report:

1. Since the passage of the law, Florida’s gun homicide rate jumped above the national average – and has stayed there. In the 6 years prior to the law‘s passage, the rate of gun homicides in Florida was 3.7 per 100,000 residents, below the national average rate of 4 murders per 100,000 residents. After Stand Your Ground was passed in the state, the average gun homicide rate jumped to more than 4.5 murders per 100,000 residents in Florida while going down nationwide. In the two years following the enactment of the Stand Your Ground law, the number of gun-related homicides in Florida increased by more than 200 cases.

2. Florida’s Stand Your Ground law appears to have a disparate impact on black communities. A study by the Tampa Bay Times of nearly 200 Stand Your Ground cases in Florida found that defendants seeking to avoid criminal liability for a homicide by mounting a Stand Your Ground defense were significantly more likely to be successful if they killed a black victim than a white victim. In fact, from 2005 to 2012, defendants who raised a Stand Your Ground defense in Florida were 24 percent more likely to avoid criminal liability for a homicide if they killed a black victim.

3. The impacts of Stand Your Ground have translated to an additional 600 homicides per year across the country. Within one year of Gov. Bush’s signing, 21 other states had introduced the legislation and 13 had enacted expanded self-defense laws. A 2012 study by researchers at Texas A&M University found that Stand Your Ground laws led to more homicides: States that enacted such laws saw an 8 percent increase in homicides, which translated to an additional 600 homicides per year across all states with these laws. National Urban League’s own 2013 study found that in states that enacted Stand Your Ground laws between 2005 and 2007, the rate of justifiable homicides increased by 53 percent.

A new op-ed drawn from CAP Action’s report and written by Ben Jealous, former president and CEO of the NAACP, highlights how Florida’s Stand Your Ground law poses an even larger threat in Florida because the states gun laws are so weak. In fact Florida’s gun laws remain so lax that George Zimmerman, who in addition to shooting and killing Trayvon Martin, was arrested for assaulting a police officer, the subject of a domestic violence restraining order, arrested 3 times for domestic violence, and threatened to kill a man during a road rage incident, is still permitted carry a gun in Florida.

BOTTOM LINE: America has Jeb Bush to thank for Stand Your Ground. And as research continues to suggest, America has this NRA-backed law to thank for hundreds more gun homicides every year and a disproportionate impact on communities of color.