Wed 6/5: Making voting more accessible, especially to those with disabilities. Part 1: CA – Thank our legislators!

(Today’s actions from Americans of Conscience, quote from – Lisa Schur, Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations.)

35.4 million people with disabilities were expected to vote in the 2016 presidential election. That was an increase of 7 percent over 2012 and represented nearly one-sixth of the total U.S. electorate at the time.

Action #1 – Check to see if our state has Automatic Voter Registration.

We do. CA was the 2nd of 15 states to adopt the process that makes voter registration an “opt-out” instead of “opt-in” option when eligible citizens interact with government agencies, like the DMV in CA, that provide this service. “Automatic voter registration” (AVR) makes voting easier for those with disabilities by eliminating the need to submit paper forms that are not accessible to them.

Action #2 – Thank our state legislators for their record on voting accessibility.

Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson voted for the bill that created AVR – AB 1461 in 2015, as well as a lot of of other great voting legislation listed in the “Background” section below. Relatively new Assembly Member Monique Límon (2016) has also consistently supported voter accessibility legislation.

Minimal Script: I’m calling from [zip code] to thank [Senator Jackson/ Assemblymember Límon] for her efforts in bring fairness and access to all of California’s voters. Continue reading “Wed 6/5: Making voting more accessible, especially to those with disabilities. Part 1: CA – Thank our legislators!” →

Wed 6/5: Cut funds for Trump’s deportation machine and thank your reps for pushing through H.R. 6 – the “American Dream & Promise Act!”

Action #1 – #DefundHate – Ask your congress member to use their vote to protect immigrant families.

Funding for immigration enforcement has exploded under Trump, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have received billions in additional funding, some taken from other agencies, to tear gas, separate, and cage families, and to terrorize communities. House Democrats must act during this year’s appropriations process to reduce funding to the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Control back to its Obama-era levels, and to rein in the worst abuses of these agencies.

Our particular members of Congress, Reps. Carbajal and Brownley, are not members of the Appropriations committee, but they can still have a meaningful impact on the process by voting against any funding bill that increases the ability of ICE and CBP to enforce Trump’s racist agenda.

Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want Rep. [___] to commit to voting against any funding for ICE and CBP enforcement and sign the letter led by Reps. Jayapal, Pocan, Castro, and Chu calling on the House Appropriations Committee to #DefundHate.

Action #2 – Thank your legislators for fighting all forms of family separation, starting with H.R.6.

Sí, se puede! H.R. 6 just passed the House on Tuesday with a 237-187 vote. Continue reading “Wed 6/5: Cut funds for Trump’s deportation machine and thank your reps for pushing through H.R. 6 – the “American Dream & Promise Act!”” →

Wed – 6/5: Come join your neighbors tonight! Oxnard’s City Manager and Council needs to hear from you about the proposed budget cuts.

Action – Come to the meeting tonight and talk to the city council about your concerns. (Meeting begins at 6:00)

It is now clear that Oxnard has serious financial problems. However, people need to oversee that cuts are not unfairly placed upon minorities, the poor, the disabled and children. Unfortunately, beyond the employees who will actually lose their jobs, it appears that these groups will be hurt the most.

discover us

The city is targeting art and cultural mainstays, like the Oxnard Performing Arts and Convention Center, home to mainstream musical acts, film festivals, dance classes, school graduations, Boys & Girls Club, Martin Luther King Day, and private events and the Carnegie Museum, which hosts art shows, poetry reading and free kids’ art workshops. Both these venues serve the soul of a community, bring pride to participants and draw in visitors to the area. (The PACC is running a support campaign here, with a gofundme page here.)

Colonia branch header Continue reading “Wed – 6/5: Come join your neighbors tonight! Oxnard’s City Manager and Council needs to hear from you about the proposed budget cuts.” →

Tues 6/4: H.R. 1/S.949 – “For the People Act” is a litmus test for corruption. Ask your senators to stand up and fight for a country to be proud of.

Video and top graphic from equalcitizens.us

Today’s action on protecting our right to vote is to ask our Senators to push through H.R.1/ S.949, historic bills to strengthen democracy. H.R.1 passed the House on March 8th, on a 234-193 vote. Now the Senate version – S.949, is in the Senate and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a shamelessly partisan operative, has vowed to stop it, calling it “radical” and “socialist“. This would be a surprise to the non-partisan League of Women Voters, who’ve endorsed H.R.1 as “an important step forward in repairing our broken political system and our destructive campaign finance system.”

These bills will:

Change the way campaigns get funded
End partisan gerrymandering
Establish automatic voter registration
Restore the Voting Rights Act
Impose strong new ethics rules on members of Congress.

Action – Call your senator and remind them that we want this brought to the Senate floor now.

All the Democratic senators have already signed on. Get your family and friends in red states to pick up their phones too. We need GOP senators to get this done.

Minimal Script for Democratic Senators: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want to thank Sen. [___] for [his/her] support of S.949 and to tell Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that his constituents aren’t accepting corruption-as-usual nonsense anymore and to bring S.949 – “For the People Act” to the floor for a vote.

Continue reading “Tues 6/4: H.R. 1/S.949 – “For the People Act” is a litmus test for corruption. Ask your senators to stand up and fight for a country to be proud of.” →

Tues 6/4: URGENT ALERT! Board of Supervisors meeting this afternoon, 3:30 pm on the Oxnard Tar Sand Wells.

PLEASE COME TODAY TO PROTECT OUR WATER!

Ventura County Government Center, Board of Supervisors Room, June 4th, 3:30 pm. 800 S. Victoria Ave. Ventura

CFROG Needs everyone who cares about clean water in Ventura to gather at the Country Government Center (800 S. Victoria) on Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 pmto support The Board of Supervisors vote for an urgency ordinance that has placed a moratorium on new cyclic steam drilling on TAR SAND WELLS until the USGS study of the impact of drilling on the aquifers is completed..

County planning is currently processing a zoning clearance application for 79 new wells on the Oxnard Plain taking farmland to make new drill pads for wells that will extract dirty tar sands using cyclic steam.

A temporary ban was placed on new well or re-drilling existing wells that use an extreme steam injection process called “cyclic steam” near potable water because of a discovery by the USGS that thermogenic gases have been detected in 3 water wells in the Fox Canyon aquifer in concentrations slightly below the flammable/explosive level.

“The…wells with the strongest signals lie above the cyclic steam activity and they are associated with that and not with the deep injection wells with high volumes at the deeper depths.”

The oil companies quickly tried to smear CFROG for publicizing the findings of USGS scientist Celia Rosecrans, claiming we “didn’t understand” the research, but obviously we do. And so does Supervisor Bennett, who prepared this motion independently.

(You can watch Rosecrans’ presentation here at 1:23 minute in.)

Background

Continue reading “Tues 6/4: URGENT ALERT! Board of Supervisors meeting this afternoon, 3:30 pm on the Oxnard Tar Sand Wells.” →

Mon 6/3: Monday’s Resistance Agenda!

Action #1 – Write a comment to oppose the Plains permit for an oil pipeline in SB,SLO and Kern Counties! Deadline today!

More information here. The people who brought us the Refugio Oil Spill in 2015 are back for another bite of the apple. Tell the BLM “no thanks”.

Action #2 – Support our local year-round homeless shelter/housing navigation center! Attend the City Council meeting tonight at 6 pm.

More information here. If you’ve ever wondered how you can help the homeless people you see around you, this is it. Sit at the City Council (it won’t be for long) and let your support be seen.

Action #3 – Donate to “Spread the Vote”.

More information here. “Spread the Vote” helps people get that ID in their pocket that allows them into the polling place in our more oppressive states.

Action #4 – Join in a free online course on reducing gun violence.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University are offering an online course, which begins today, to teach the academic research and strategies they say are the best weapon to curb gun violence. Gun violence experts put the course together after hundreds of thousands of people — many of them students — participated in March For Our Lives last year, calling for tighter gun laws.”  You can take the online course here from Coursera for free (or pay $49 for a certificate) and learn how to combat gun violence in our communities.

Mon – 6/3: Donate to “Spread the Vote”.

Yeah, we often make our readers do complicated actions because we know you can (yes, we’re looking at this action right here, also due today), but every once in awhile, it’s nice to do one simple thing…

So, this month, first thing in the morning, we’re going to share an action from Americans of Conscience, each one covering different aspects of protecting our right to vote in preparation for the 2020 election.

Not every action applies to us here in CA, thank goodness, but if we’re off the hook, take a moment to share it with friends and family in more oppressive states.

Action #1: Empower future voters.

Spread the Vote and its Project ID initiative help citizens obtain IDs in states that require ID for voting. This graphic report breaks down who has ID’s and who we need to reach out to. Key findings show: Continue reading “Mon – 6/3: Donate to “Spread the Vote”.” →

Sun 6/2: Tomorrow (Mon. June 3rd) is the deadline for comments to stop our area’s next major pipeline disaster.

Both Exxon, a company that’s been gaslighting the public on the risks of fossil fuels since 1977, and Plains Pipeline, L.P., a Texas-based oil transport and storage company who was convicted of felony charges for their mishandling of the 2015 Santa Barbara pipeline oil spill (aka Refugio Oil Spill) want us to give them a second chance. Exxon wants to re-open their three old oil platforms off our coast and Plains want to build a new 123 mile pipeline system to replace the one that leaked. With a great team like that…what could go wrong?

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is now asking for public comment on the pipeline proposal by Plains to determine relevant issues before they prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

Let’s tell the BLM EXACTLY what could go wrong…

Action – Write a comment to oppose the Plains permit for an oil pipeline in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Kern Counties! Deadline, Monday, June 3rd,

1. Go here to comment! It will look like this…

Continue reading “Sun 6/2: Tomorrow (Mon. June 3rd) is the deadline for comments to stop our area’s next major pipeline disaster.” →

Fri 5/31: Time’s up! Here are some winners & losers of the first half of the race to become a California law.

CA legislature progress update.

Our assemblymembers and state senators created a record 2,576 new bills on a strict timetable for the 2019 CA legislative term. Today, May 31st, is the deadline for bills to pass through all the committees in the house that created them and a floor vote. After that, surviving bills must pass a similar obstacle course in the opposite house. Bills that make it through both venues may get to meet the governor and his pen, for approval or a veto. Here’s a listing of 140 bills that are interesting to us and groups, like the Sierra Club, that we coalition with. You will recognize a number of these bills as the subject of calls or emails we’ve asked you to make.

Black words – the bill has passed and will be assigned to a committee in the next house
Blue words – the bill has NOT passed and won’t continue to the next house.
Red words means that a bad bill is continuing to the next house.

Economic/Finance/Commercial

AB-25 California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018.
AB-539 California Financing Law: consumer loans: charges.
AB-818 Local government finance: vehicle license fee adjustment amounts.
AB-857 Public banks.
AB-1525 Cannabis: financial institutions.
SB-203 Public bank.

Education

Continue reading “Fri 5/31: Time’s up! Here are some winners & losers of the first half of the race to become a California law.” →

Thur 5/30: 5-3 against us on banning guns at Ventura County Fairgrounds. Let’s get to work… (3) calls = 5 minutes.

The Fairgrounds board members told us to reach out to the governor and our legislators if we want change.

OK…

Action #1: Call your legislators!

Minimal script for our state senator: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want Senator Jackson to support SB-281 – a bill that would ban gun shows at the Cow Palace, as well as AB-893 when it comes before you on June 11th in your Public Safety Committee. We would also like her to sponsor new legislation to help us ban gun shows at our Ventura County Fairgrounds. It’s the 21st century and we need to find more positive ways to support our state-owned facilities than with the sale of weaponry.

Minimal script for our assemblymember: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want to thank Assemblymember Limón for supporting AB-893, which bans firearm sales at Del Mar Fairgrounds and we hope she will similarly support SB-281 – which bans gun shows at the Cow Palace, when it arrives in the Assembly. We would also like her to sponsor new legislation to ban gun shows at our Ventura County Fairgrounds. It’s the 21st century and we need to find more positive ways to support our state-owned facilities than with the sale of weaponry.

Contacts:
State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (SD-19): SAC (916) 651-4019, SB (805) 965-0862, OX (805)988-1940 email
State Assemblymember Monique Limón (CA-37): SAC (916) 319-2037, SB (805) 564-1649, VTA (805) 641-3700 email
Not your people?: findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov.