February 23, 2024
House: get back to work, support voting access, help Boy Scout survivors, and more!
Contact all members of Congress:
- By phone: (202) 224-3121
- By email: democracy.io
- By US mail: Representatives / Senators
- By fax: Representatives / Senators
- By Resistbot: Resist.bot
Contact White House or other federal agencies:
- TELL THE HOUSE TO GET BACK TO WORKIt is time for the House to go back to Washington and do the job they were elected to do. There are too many things that require their action: funding for Ukraine, Gaza relief, Israel, the imposter FBI informant from Russia, etc. Last month, Congress approved a short-term stop-gap funding bill that Biden signed, but that time is running out. “The new spending measure maintains a two-tier structure where some agencies would run out of money on March 1 and others would remain funded through March 8.” Let’s tell our reps that they need to be in DC to govern.
- KEEP THE PRESSURE ON VOTING ACCESSIn 2021, President Biden issued an executive order to promote access to voting. Among other things, the order required the heads of federal agencies to come up with strategic plans for promoting voter registration and voter participation, including by directing people to an improved Vote.gov. This article from Democracy Docket includes more details about the executive order. In a February 20, 2024, letter to the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), more than a dozen senators have requested an update on progress in implementing the executive order. In these days of ongoing voter suppression, let’s reinforce the senators’ message by telling President Biden that we expect the administration to fully implement the executive order. Specifically:
- Honor the senators’ request for the GSA’s implementation plans, including updates, timelines, and deadlines, and the date that the modernization of Vote.gov will be completed.
- Make sure, pursuant to the executive order, that federal agencies have increased access to information about voter registration and elections, maximized participation under the National Voter Registration Act, and designed recommendations to help maximize participation from various communities.
- SMARTER PROXY VOTINGIf we’re privileged enough to be able to invest, we may be familiar with proxy voting: Companies let shareholders who can’t attend meetings designate someone to vote on their behalf about decisions such as executive hiring. Usually, the proxy option is a company leader who votes for corporate interests. A partnership between the shareholder-advocacy organization As You Sow and the tech company Iconik offers a free proxy service to vote for environmental, social, and governance priorities. Signing up requires creating an account and completing an optional process to indicate voting preferences. The service will then vote by proxy on shareholder ballots collected from a personal email account or forwarded to the service by the shareholder. This tip is not investing advice but describes a way to use proxy voting to support ESG interests. Let’s check out this service so that our proxy votes in a way that matches our values.
- ALABAMA MUST ELIMINATE STATUE OF LIMITATIONS FOR SURVIVORS OF BOY SCOUT SEX ABUSEOnly 1 to 3 percent of Child Sex Abuse (CSA) perpetrators ever face guilty pleas or convictions, prompting survivors to the seek justice through civil lawsuits. But survivors in Alabama must file before they turn 25, an age when many are still recovering and processing their abuse and are not necessarily emotionally or financially ready to engage in a legal battle with their abusers. This deadline is especially harmful to the thousands of Alabama CSA survivors who were victimized by Boy Scouts of America (BSA) leaders, who concealed abuse, leaving lasting damage. Senator Merika Coleman’s SB18, the Scout’s Honor Law, aims to assist survivors by eliminating the civil SOL for CSA cases against bankrupt estates, ensuring full participation in the Scouting Settlement Trust Without SB18, the child sex abuse survivors risk receiving only a fraction of what they are owed. This bill must be passed by April 2024, and we can help by signing a petition of support here. If we are Alabama residents, we can call our local legislators and ask them to support and expedite SB18 to give the survivors of Boy Scout sex abuse the compensation they deserve.
STATE-SPECIFIC ACTIONS
- GA – RESIST NEW EFFORTS AT VOTER SUPPRESSION
Continuing their leading role in restricting access to the ballot in the years since Shelby County v Holder, Georgia Republican legislators have introduced yet another voter suppression bill. SB 446 would cut a full week more off of early voting, joining a raft of other anti-voting bills under consideration such as SB 367 to eliminate the use of drop boxes. Let’s reach out to our state legislators to tell them we want them to expand voting rights, not make it harder to vote, and we want them to oppose this and other bills with similar aims. We can also sign up for updates from Common Cause Georgia to learn of more opportunities for action.