Dear friends,
Wearing a t-shirt that reads “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” Congresswoman Cori Bush spent all of Friday night on the steps of the US Capitol. Before being elected, Bush was evicted more than once and has described spending nights in her car and startling herself awake to check on her sleeping children. Bush was joined by Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley, among others.
The protest continued on Saturday.
AOC called out the president and fellow Democrats for the failure to pass legislation to extend the moratorium. She noted that the Supreme Court had indicated its likely opposition to another extension of the executive moratorium a month ago, but that the president delayed calling on Congress to act until the House was about to adjourn.
“The House was put into a needlessly difficult situation. And it’s not just me saying that. Financial services chairwoman Maxine Waters has made that very clear as well.”
AOC highlighted the problems with the administration of federal rent relief, which have occurred in many states, including New York.
“We cannot kick people out of their homes when our end of the bargain has not been fulfilled. Out of the $46 billion that has been allocated, only $3 billion has gone out to help renters and small mom-and-pop landlords.”
Ocasio-Cortez noted that although Congress has adjourned for a seven-week summer break, members were on notice of being called back to vote on an infrastructure deal.
“Having 11 million Americans, one out of every six renters, at risk of being kicked out of their homes is worth coming back [for]. . . .“We cannot leave town without doing our job.”
The pandemic is not over. Some states are facing their most severe outbreaks right now.
Call the House switchboard at 1-202-224-3121 and ask for your representative. Let them know that we need a federal eviction moratorium, passed by Congress. It takes less than a minute.
The most hopeful thing I read this weekend was about a visit to a classroom of fourth graders by a law professor with a specialty in election law. The law professor learned what teachers have long known about young people:
they have strong, innate ideas about structural unfairness.
The discussion impressed the law professor as both sophisticated and practical:
[I]t quickly emerged that they understood the basic unfairness of a system in which one side is allowed to craft rules that will help the party in power. They said that it made no sense to let one side essentially shut the other side out of having an equal chance of winning. They didn’t know it, but they had offered the best critique possible of gerrymandering, which over the years has helped incumbent candidates, political parties or white majorities stay in power: It’s simply not fair. Someone shouldn’t win just because they run in a district that is stacked in their favor.
And, interestingly, these youngsters recognized the problems inherent in rules that make it harder for some people to vote for no other reason than their station in life. One student expressed support for a voter ID requirement. But then another objected, noting that some people might have a harder time obtaining an ID. “What if they work two jobs, take the bus to work and have no need for an ID?” that student asked. The first student had a solution: The government should proactively give every eligible voter an ID before imposing the requirement.
There are members of both houses of Congress determined to act on common sense fairness to craft a narrower voting rights bill that might win broader support. By jettisoning campaign finance reform — for now — and focusing on redistricting and ballot access, including “same-day voter registration, voting by mail, 15 days of early voting and requirements for provisional ballots,” they hope to overcome the objections of Joe Manchin and some Republicans.
The strategy is to pass a law that will protect the coming midterms. We are not giving up on campaign finance reform.
Call Senators Schumer and Gillibrand to let them know that protecting ballot access and ending gerrymandering are urgent priorities.
There was a lot of crazy news last week, and somehow I missed this: the New York State Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order to stop construction of National Grid’s Liquefied Natural Gas facility.
Why did this happen? The well-named Sane Energy Project filed lawsuits against National Grid, the city, and the state, after a prolonged campaign — in which we have participated — to stop the construction of new fracked gas infrastructure. The Sane Energy Project noted that lawsuits were the only recourse left:
We did all the things to stop this unnecessary, racist fracked gas pipeline and LNG depot.
We filed tens of thousands of opposition letters. We researched. We cross-examined in the rate-case. We amplified engineers, scientists, health professionals, environmental justice laws. We attended hearings -- we actually CREATED the hearings by building broad public support. We sat in meetings with City and State officials. We gave them press opportunities to be climate and community heroes. We showed them the evidence and where NYC and NYS have legal levers. We even locked our damn bodies down to the pipeline.
We will be watching for a ruling.
More than once, folks have asked me about the efficacy of petitions. My research has turned up an interesting response: petitions themselves are not very effective but signing them often leads people to more significant actions. I am interested in how we move ourselves to work for justice, especially when we are encouraged to believe our actions will be futile.
The question resurfaced again recently. I have shared that my own state senator, Kevin Parker, doesn’t think much of petitions (“don’t bother”) and confessed that he doesn’t read emails (“email is the worst!”). Of course, there are variations among elected leaders. I have received multiple personal emails from council members (not my own) and their staff in response to my emails.
Parker said that what gets his attention is ten or twenty calls on one day about the same issue. We can do this.
Practice collective relentlessness today. Make the calls (above).
There are other reasons to read and sign petitions: the language of petitions can be informative and the sponsorship may point the way to allies and organizations working on the issues that matter to us. In addition, most of us understand that clicking on petitions is a warm up for bigger action, like the morning stretch.
Sign this petition to end government support and private financing of fossil fuel projects.
That was your morning stretch. Here’s some bigger action:
Register for tomorrow’s webinar with Tara Houska of Giniw Collective, Kayah George of Indigenous Climate Action, Representative Rashida Tlaib, and Bill McKibben to learn more about defunding climate chaos.
I recently got a call from someone from the NY Caring Majority. I asked the caller why she was calling, and she explained that the organization can tell who opens their emails and who takes action. She was trying to engage me more deeply in the organization. I understood, because this is exactly what I’m doing.
Sometimes, I repeat an action because I’m surprised at how few people responded and I think it’s important, and sometimes I repeat it because of how many people did. Your actions inform me of the issues that matter to you.
This was one of the most popular actions in recent weeks, in case you missed it:
Please indicate that you want to sign up for curbside composting.
Have a great day!
with love,
L