Blog
Join CPD friends and allies on June 26 at 7:30pm in Brooklyn, NY for Greenlight Bookstore’s next installment of their Civic Engagement Series. Greenlight’s Civic Engagement Series hosts nonprofit groups working in social justice, community organizing, and the arts, with the goal of providing tools for community involvement and support to those doing necessary work in our culture. Join Co-Executive Director Andrew Friedman and Senior Attorney Kumar Rao who will lead a discussion on how government relies on policing and incarceration policies to advance public safety, and how advocates are pushing for less damaging, fairer, and more effective safety investments in communities that promote opportunity and racial equity.
They will explore tools to reduce over-policing and criminalization of communities of color, and highlight the school-to-prison-pipeline work they are doing, particularly in the context of the new administration. 20% of all book sales during the entire day of the event will be donated to CPD, and an option for direct donation will be available at the event. You can learn more here.
This Saturday, June 3rd CPD will be joining #MarchForTruth to raise our voices and let our elected leaders know that Americans want answers. The legitimacy of our democracy is more important than the interests of any party, or any President. Join us and a number of national allies as we rise together to call for a fair and impartial investigation, for the pursuit of truth, and for the restoration of faith in our electoral system and the Office of the Presidency. More than 135 cities in the US and abroad will participate. Learn more here.
Across the country, peaceful demonstrations will be arranged on Saturday, June 3rd. Our goals are simple: An independent commission must be established to fully investigate the Trump administration’s motives for interfering in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and Congressional investigations should be properly resourced and pursued free of partisan interests; As much information should be made available to the public as possible, and as soon as possible; Congress should require Donald Trump to release his tax returns to clarify his business interests and obligations to any foreign entity. If crimes were committed or if collusion is discovered, it must be prosecuted.
This month, CPD Network President and Co-Executive Director, Jennifer Epps-Addison, joined MoveOn, Working Families Party, and People’s Action to co-host two more “Ready to Resist” national phone call for activists around the country. An incredible 45,000 people joined the call in order to understand more about the challenges ahead and to how they can take action.
On April 9, Representative Maxine Waters and Representative Barbara Lee joined the call to fire up listeners about the urgency of the moment, to learn how best to engage with members of Congress, and to learn what a movement for peace and justice looks like in the Trump era. An audio recording of the call along with slides from the meeting are available at moveon.org/readytoresist.
You can RSVP for the next “Ready to Resist” mass movement call on April 30 and join tens of thousands of people united in our movement to resist the Trump agenda and protect our communities. On April 30, we will celebrate 100 Days of Resistance, and hear inspiring stories and lessons from organizers across the country as we prepare for the next phase of our resistance movement. RSVP today!
On April 29, CPD and affiliates will join hundreds of thousands of people at the People’s Climate March in Washington, D.C., to reject Trump’s attack on our communities and climate, and push forward a vision for a clean energy economy that works for everyone.
The People’s Climate Mobilization is part of a larger strategy to push back on Trump’s agenda of climate denial and fossil fuel expansion, and then focus at the local level by fighting fossil fuels and lifting up real climate solutions. To change everything, we need everyone.
Click here to learn more and join a march near you!
Please join us in welcoming MHAction to the CPD network! MHAction empowers homeowners and residents in manufactured home communities to build and win local, state and national issue campaigns that protect and strengthen the long-term viability and affordability of their communities. MHAction organizes across class, race, religion, age, citizenship status, sexual orientation and gender lines in order to build successful issue campaigns.
MHAction has successfully pushed for advances in state and local policy including the passage of a rent stabilization ordinance in Humboldt County, California and a statewide homeowner help-line in Utah. In 2016, MHAction secured an agreement to create a homeowner grievance-procedure process with Equity Lifestyle Properties, Inc., the nation’s largest corporate owner of manufactured housing communities. In March of 2017, MHAction worked with homeowners in a co-operatively owned community in Florida to resist buy-out offers from private equity firms. Most importantly, MHAction has emerged as a new and unique source of grassroots voices for social, racial and economic justice work in exurban and rural geographies across the country.
MHAction leaders have already started to collaborate with other powerful CPD affiliates like NYCC and ACCE to build a rural-exurban-urban housing justice alliance. Joining the CPD Network will allow MHAction to grow the reach of the progressive movement in rural and exurban geographies and build multi-issue campaigns to strengthen the movement for racial, gender, and economic justice.
To find out more about MHAction, like them on Facebook and join MHAction’s email list.
In the weeks prior to Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing, CPD worked closely with our affiliates across the country and particularly in key states such as Florida, Ohio and Minnesota, to pile pressure on Senators to oppose the confirmation of Gorsuch. CPD Action’s #BlockGorsuch digital campaign targeted 13 states and drove more than 30,000 people to contact their senators to oppose Trump’s nominee.
By Monday, April 3, all but four senators announced they would oppose his nomination. This secured enough opposition to prevent Gorsuch from receiving the 60 votes necessary to confirm him.
CPD affiliate Organize Florida played a key role in lobbying Senator Bill Nelson to vote no, for example. Their very first time lobbying, member leaders descended on Senator Bill Nelson’s office in Washington, DC to make their voices heard.
And yet, instead of responding to the concerns of the people and the forty four Senators who stood up against Gorsuch’s nomination, Senator McConnell and the rest of Senate Republicans ignored the will of the people, and decided to break the 200 year-old Senate rule on confirmations for the sole purpose of confirming an extreme right-wing judge who has a consistent track record of siding with corporations over the interests of working people. While this partisan power grab was a blow, the CPD Network will continue to support and move concerned citizens to make it clear to our elected officials, that Trump’s hateful agenda is unacceptable.
Since March 24, when millions of Americans celebrated blocking President Trump’s plan to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, Republicans in Congress have continued to scheme as to how to take healthcare away from an estimated 24 million Americans. The CPD Network continues to fight at the local level, holding our elected officials accountable to ensure their constituents have a health care system that works for all.
On April 18, in 15 states across the country, Health Care for America Now (HCAN) and Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) released a new report examining the harmful effects on health care and tax fairness that would result if the Affordable Care Act were repealed and replaced by the House Republican plan.
Seven CPD affiliates released state-specific reports that included numbers for all the report’s major findings in Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Vermont.
Click here to read the report and see if your state could be affected by the irresponsible House Republican plan.
On April 15, thousands of protesters took to the streets across the country to demand President Trump release his tax returns and hold the wealthy accountable for taxes working people pay each year. CPD joined the coalition of seventy organizations, labor unions, and economic justice advocates fighting for a tax system where all Americans, regardless of socioeconomic status, have the opportunity to reach their highest potential. Protests impacted more than 100 cities across the country with an estimated combined attendance of over 120,000.
CPD Action worked to promote the Tax March in the weeks leading up to Saturday, April 15, including sharing an op-ed on why, “The Tax Day March Is Not Just About Trump’s Taxes. The article explains, that “The nine largest banks in America… have used loopholes and other tax dodging schemes to lower their tax rate [to] a lower rate than what millions of middle class families pay… These billions of dollars could have been used to fund public services that millions [...] rely on, like public housing, healthcare, and education.”
CPD affiliate New York Communities for Change (NYCC) followed up with a direct action on April 18, targeting Wall Street profiteers who stand to gain from Trump’s tax plan. Dozens of activists protested outside Goldman Sachs, one of the nine largest banks in America and a bank that continues to dodge billions in taxes each year. Billionaires must be held accountable and pay their fair share of taxes: “Unlike Donald Trump, most Americans don’t mind paying their taxes. What they object to is letting the rich and powerful avoid paying theirs. It’s time for the one percent to step up to the plate.”
As President Trump approaches his 100th day in office and continues to push his anti-immigrant, anti-worker agenda, some of the country’s largest corporations are standing by the President and are positioning themselves to profit from his hateful agenda. Today, CPD is launching the “Corporate Backers of Hate” campaign to target some of the companies which most egregiously prioritize profits over people - including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Blackstone, Black Rock, IBM, Boeing, Disney, and Uber. For these companies, the Trump administration offers an opportunity to profit from the mass suffering and the exploitation of others.
Trump's policies have a tremendous human impact - for example, his ramped up immigration enforcement is tearing families apart. On May Day, CPD partner organizations around the country are organizing direct actions against the corporations that are complicit with - and profiting from - the border wall and the detention and deportation of immigrant families.
While there is a long history of corporations profiting from the exploitation of our communities, since election day, many of these corporations have joined Trump’s business council and have begun to aggressively pursue “market opportunities” tied to Trump’s agenda. These corporations impact all the issues our network works on: from immigration to workers’ rights, education to mass incarceration, economic to LGBTQ justice, affordable housing, voting rights and money in politics, and assaults on the environment.
The Corporate Backers of Hate campaign will include direct actions, a social and digital media strategy, and municipal and state campaigns to review and limit business dealings with these companies. You can support our efforts by visiting this website and by sending emails direct to CEOs and board members of these corporations.
On Monday, March 27, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions reiterated Trump’s threats to cut funding to sanctuary cities, local elected officials from across the country gathered to plan how we can fight back together.
Seeking Sanctuary: Municipal Policy to Confront Mass Deportation and Criminalization, a national convening hosted by Local Progress, Center for Popular Democracy, and Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito brought together elected officials from 30 cities and counties across the country to share policy innovations, litigation strategies, and ways in which local leaders can disrupt Trump's deportation policies.
In conjunction with the gathering, we released a practical toolkit, including sample language for local legislation, for policy makers and advocates advancing policies to keep families together.
The two-day #SeekingSanctuary convening covered a range of policies to fight unconstitutional attempts to separate immigrant families, including: Policies to ensure that local law enforcement agents are not being coopted to enforce unjust and unconstitutional deportation mandates. For more details on these policies, check out our toolkit.
Programs providing access to counsel. Participants toured and learned about New York City’s innovative New York Immigrant Family Unity Program, which provides legal counsel to immigrants facing deportations and increases the chances they will win their case by over 1,000 percent. San Francisco and Chicago have also recently increased their financial commitment to providing representation to immigrants facing deportation.
Criminal justice reforms like Seattle’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Program which minimize the risk of immigrants being swept into the broken criminal justice system, and put at risk for deportation, based on minor offenses.
We heard from Santa Clara Board President David Cortese and Supervisor Cindy Chavez about the county’s lawsuit against Trump’s unconstitutional executive order threatening funding to sanctuary cities, which has been joined by over forty cities and counties across the country, Commissioner Chuy Garcia and Councilmember Carlos Ramirez Rosa about the tragic impacts of aggressive ICE raids in Chicago and from Austin Councilmember Greg Casar about the impact of state level threats, which have already resulted in Austin losing $1.5m in state funding and include a bill that threatens to criminalize local elected officials from office for refusing co-option of local resources by ICE. And we were joined by dozens of legal experts, community organizers and policy wonks who discussed how elected officials are a part of a national movement to fight back together against the unjust and unconstitutional anti-immigrant policies of this administration.
The event was covered by NBC News, The Huffington Post, Democracy Now, Telemundo and dozens of other national and local outlets.
This event was made possible through a partnership with New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and with funding from the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundation and the Latino Victory Foundation.
