Dear friends,
We’re starting with good news: Governor Whitmer of Michigan just signed a bill that will allow voter pre-registration at 16. One way to get more democracy is to make sure that young people are registered and ready to vote.
Youth voting is a passion of mine, and it’s one of the issues we work on at the state, local, and personal level. I’m particularly excited to mobilize voters in NY-3, where there will soon be a special election to fill the seat in Congress that Santos just got ejected from.
If you teach high school and want me to come to your classroom to do a voter readiness lesson, reply to this post and I will follow up with you!
If you’re a Pennsylvania voter:
Tell your legislators to pass SB 904 to allow young people to preregister to vote at age 16. This action is from The Civics Center.
The Civics Center is also mobilizing letter writers to help promote youth registration and voting in Arizona. You can volunteer to write as few as 10 letters. I’m envisioning an extra-credit activity for classes and family nights for letter writing.
Write some letters to Arizona families to help get young people registered and ready to vote.
As the days get shorter, writing letters and postcards is a cozy bit of activism. Your hands touch the cards and the messages — your voice matters, thank you for being a good voter — encourage people to do a good thing. It can be done alone or with friends, while snacking and listening to music.
Sign up for the Dec 14 orientation so you can write postcards with the Environmental Voter Project!
It is the season for finishing legislative business. I included the wrong link in for an action from a week ago. It’s part of the end-of-term push to get Governor Hochul to sign some good bills that have been sitting on her desk.
Help move important legislation to the top of the pile. The descriptions of the bills are in the action and you can always tailor the actions to reflect your own concerns.
Tell the governor to take care of unfinished legislative business! I made this so easy!
We get more democracy when we know what’s going on, which is why government transparency and independent journalism are so critical.
If there are no reporting requirements, the public remains unaware of the dangers to which we are exposed. This is the case with pesticides in the state of Massachusetts.
There is a Massachusetts state pre-emption law that prevents town governments from being allowed to write and create laws on pesticide use.
If you’re a Massachusetts voter, you can demand local control over pesticides and required reporting on the scope of the problem.
Tell your legislators to support a legislative package to protect the food and water supply from harmful pesticides. This action is from the Northeast Organic Farming Association.
In mid-November, the Texas State Board of Education made decisions about new textbooks. Because of the state’s size and purchasing power, their rejection of certain content in textbooks has impact beyond the state.
Some Republicans on the 15-member board waved off current textbook options as too negative toward fossil fuels and failing to include alternatives to evolution. One of Texas’ regulators of the oil and gas industry, Republican Wayne Christian, had urged the board to choose books promoting the importance of fossil fuels for energy promotion.
The Texas Board’s decisions reflect political concerns rather than scientific facts and deny to their students the knowledge they need to act as informed citizens.
Contact the Texas Board of Education from wherever you are to let them know that that they are doing a disservice to their students.
COP28, the annual climate conference organized by the UN, commenced yesterday in Dubai. After the planet’s hottest year ever, you would reasonably hope that world leaders and fossil fuel executives would minimize the hot air. Sorry.
Emily Atkin explains why we should pay attention to what’s happening in Dubai and provides some good further reading to help you make sense of COP28.
So far, there is an agreement ‘in principle’ for nations to finally pay into a “loss and damage fund” to assist the nations most affected by the world’s largest and most polluting economies. The US has pledged just $17.5 million, which is appalling as we are the leading polluter over time.
The United Arab Emirates and Germany each pledged $100 million toward the fund and the United Kingdom pledged about $76 million. Japan pledged $10 million. The European Union would contribute at least €225 million (about $245 million).
Creating the fund is a necessary and overdue step. The money is not, however, equal to the hundreds of billions of dollars in loss and damage already inflicted by our fossil fuel consumption and emissions.
Tell the president that the US needs to make a meaningful commitment to pay for loss and damage.
And, because there are still so many people without full rights here in the US, I encourage you to read this editorial advocating statehood for Puerto Rico.
The people of Puerto Rico have supported statehood in three successive referenda on their status. In addition, statehood for Puerto Rico is favored by most Americans as well as a majority of Puerto Ricans living on the mainland.
The lack of full equality under federal laws and voting representation at the federal level for the US citizens of Puerto Rico due to territorial status has drastic consequences and is unsustainable. Glaring examples include federal neglect of essential needs, such as the unjust Medicaid caps in President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which have created health care funding shortfalls for the island’s most vulnerable, and President Trump’s inadequate disaster relief after Hurricane Maria.
Tell your US Senators that you support statehood for Puerto Rico.
It’s been a full week and there are so many things that will have to keep until Monday. Thanks for taking action!
with love,
L