Dear friends,
We’ve achieved Friday, AND it isn’t feeling much like a celebration.
Two pieces of critical voting legislation — the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act — are languishing because of the failure to reform the filibuster. This is ironic, because yesterday, Mitch McConnell allowed a “temporary rule change” to end the filibuster of the debt ceiling bill with just 51 votes.
You are not alone in feeling rage and frustration about the ease of changing rules when McConnell decides it’s okay.
“We think it’s so important that we change the rule in order to save the economy,” Senator Raphael Warnock told NBC News this week.
“Well, the warning lights on our democracy are blinking right now, and we seem unwilling to respond with the same urgency to protect the democracy that we have to protect the economy.”
Contact Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell today to urge them to set aside the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation. The actions are ready-made.
Mitch McConnell should watch Anderson Cooper’s interview with Dustin Stockton, one of the organizers of the January 6 rally. In the interview, Stockton describes his sense of betrayal by the former president, for whom he had organized many rallies.
Stockton, with whom I would likely disagree about most things, appears to be a person with some integrity. Among other things, he told Cooper that
one of the most stunning revelations about the recent text messages from Fox News producers and Trump Jr. and all these other people is that they were doing the right thing as things happened. And yet they continue to mischaracterize it afterwards. What those text messages make clear is that they knew the violence was unacceptable, that it needed to be condemned in the most serious way, and yet they continue to downplay and underplay it.
As you may recall, Mitch McConnell knew it was wrong too, until he decided that it wasn’t useful to cross Trump. And now he is sitting by as representative democracy is undermined in one state legislature after another.
The local picture is not much brighter.
Yesterday, two teenagers escaped an apartment fire at the Jacob Riis Houses, a NYCHA housing project, by shimmying down an electrical conduit. The man who died in the same fire was the third person to die in a NYCHA fire in a period of less than 30 hours.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams released the annual listing of worst landlords in NYC: NYCHA was at the top of the list. There are currently more than 600,000 open requests for repairs in NYCHA buildings, which house more than half a million New Yorkers. Note that the number of repairs required exceeds the number of residents.
Build Back Better, the huge reconciliation bill that being negotiated among the Democrats, is supposed to
contain $65 billion for public housing investments across the country. A considerable chunk of that could be destined for NYCHA, America’s largest public housing authority, which accounts for around 18% of public housing in the country.
But Build Back Better is not going to be passed before the holiday recess. Climate provisions, the Child Tax Credit, and investments in public housing are all on the line. I don’t think there’s any action we can take today that’s going to make a difference.
Oooohhhmmm.
Fifty-four New York state legislators wrote a letter to the governor asking her to include the New York Build Public Renewables Act (BPRA) on the executive agenda for the coming year in order to meet the climate targets set in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. The 2019 law calls for
reducing New York’s carbon emissions 85% by 2050 and 100% carbon free electricity by 2040. However, in the years since, climate activists have expressed disappointment with the state Legislature for not passing followup legislation to ensure the state reaches the various benchmarks.
The BPRA would change the rules to allow the New York Power Authority (NYPA) to own and operate more renewable generation facilities. It would also connect those plants to the grid and let NYPA sell renewable energy directly to customers. By 2025, it would require every property leased or owned by the state or any New York municipality to use NYPA power.
Contact Governor Hochul to let her know that we want renewable energy! A sample message is included.
This has been another tough week. It would help to end with some grace. This is the traditional season of clemency. Although the last governor received 16,000 petitions for clemency and granted just 41 commutations throughout his tenure, there is hope that Hochul is different.
There is no word yet if the governor is planning to grant clemencies in advance of the closure of six upstate prisons this spring and her spokespeople have said only that she is “committed to improving justice, fairness, and safety in the criminal justice system.”
A group called Releasing Aging People from Prison (RAPP) has been advancing clemency and parole reform. There are two bills before the state legislature that deserve support, one for Fair and Timely Parole, and one for Elder Parole. The first bill would base parole decisions on public safety considerations — considering individual behavior and evidence of rehabilitation — rather than punitive ones. The second would encourage the release of older people, who have the lowest rates of recidivism.
Write to your state legislators in support of compassionate parole reform bills. I made it easy.
Have a good weekend!
with love,
L