How to Build an Anti-Poverty Movement, From the Grassroots Up
The Nation - January 14, 2014, by Greg Kaufman - With more than 46 million people living below the poverty line, struggling to survive on $19,530 or less for a family of three, and with more than...
The Nation - January 14, 2014, by Greg Kaufman - With more than 46 million people living below the poverty line, struggling to survive on $19,530 or less for a family of three, and with more than one in three Americans living on less than twice that amount, scrimping to pay for basics, this country will require a broad-based movement to reverse the decades of failed national imagination.
The groups listed below are all worth watching as they do just that: galvanize communities, arm activists with information, and fight for living-wage jobs, stable housing and a strong safety net that catches people when they fall.
1. Coalition of Immokalee Workers: If you want to see what is possible through grassroots organizing by those who are most affected by poverty—or what it means to set a seemingly unreachable goal and persevere, or understand your opposition and find new ways to challenge it—look no further than the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.
When the CIW was founded in 1993, it was as a small group of tomato farmworkers in Immokalee, Florida, trying to end a twenty-year decline in their poverty wages. Who is historically more powerless than farmworkers? Yet today, most major buyers of Florida tomatoes have signed agreements with the CIW to pay an extra penny per pound for tomatoes. These agreements have resulted in over $11 million in additional earnings for the workers since January 2011.
In addition, through its Fair Food Program, the CIW has persuaded corporate buyers to purchase tomatoes only from growers who sign a strict code of conduct that includes zero tolerance for forced labor or sexual assault. As a result, the majority of growers (those accounting for 90 percent of the tomato industry’s $650 million in revenue) have agreed to that code. If major violations occur but don’t get corrected—and there’s a twenty-four-hour hotline for worker complaints—corporations will not buy from those growers.
The Fair Food Program serves as a new model of social responsibility, and its influence is clear in the recently signed agreement between retailers and factory owners in the Bangladesh garment industry. Follow the CIW not only to get involved with farmworkers but for a sense of what can be achieved through strategic, fearless organizing.
2. Center for Community Change: For forty-five years, the Center for Community Change has worked with low-income communities and local grassroots organizations to fight poverty. The CCC has intentionally worked behind the scenes, keeping the spotlight focused on members of the communities instead and organizing around issues ranging from voter registration, affordable housing and community development to, more recently, immigration reform, healthcare and retirement security.
Executive director Deepak Bhargava says, “We have chosen as our great task in this next era to build a nationwide movement against poverty and for economic justice. The core issue is jobs—making sure that good jobs are available and accessible to everyone.” The CCC plans to work with grassroots organizations at the local and state levels, and then form coalitions at the national level, to demand policies that create good jobs with good wages. Its goal, Bhargava says, is to help build “a massive, diverse, boisterous, energized and organized social movement.”
3. Children’s HealthWatch: This country’s political leaders talk a good game about their commitment to the well-being of children, but in too many cases, their actions tell a far different story. That story is captured, in part, by the pediatricians and healthcare professionals at Children’s HealthWatch.
CHW collects data at pediatric clinics and hospitals to show the real impact of public policy choices on the health, nutrition and development of children up to the age of 4. CHW research has shown, for example, that children receiving SNAP (food stamps) are less likely to be food insecure, underweight or at risk for developmental delays than their peers who are likely eligible for SNAP but not receiving it. CHW has also demonstrated the importance of affordable housing for children’s health, showing that children in households that move frequently or fall behind on rent are significantly more likely to be underweight, in fair or poor health, and at risk for developmental delays than their stably housed peers. And CHW has examined energy insecurity, showing that children in families struggling to afford utilities and keep their homes sufficiently heated or cooled are more likely to be food insecure, hospitalized at some point since birth, or to have moved twice or more in the past year.
By using science to evaluate whether our policies demonstrate a commitment to children and then proposing alternatives, CHW’s research guides activists past the bombast and rhetoric of today’s policy-makers.
4. Half in Ten: This campaign—which I am currently advising—is a project of the Coalition on Human Needs, the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and it has 200 partner organizations across the country. Its mission is simple: to cut poverty in half over ten years, just as we did between 1964 and 1973.
Through its comprehensive annual report, Half in Ten tracks the country’s progress toward this goal and outlines the many policies that could help slash poverty. In its 2007 inaugural report, Half in Ten demonstrated how poverty could be reduced by 26 percent simply by passing a modest increase in the minimum wage (to $8.40 at the time), expanding the earned-income tax and child tax credits, and providing affordable childcare to low-income families, among other proposals. Our leaders failed to make those recommended policy changes, and then the economy crashed, burying ever more Americans in deeper holes.
But Half in Ten keeps pushing toward its goal. In addition to policy analysis, the campaign mobilizes local groups in the field to speak out and take action during congressional policy debates. The campaign also works through its “Our American Story” project to ensure that low-income people have opportunities to tell their stories to the media, policy-makers and other advocacy groups. Follow Half in Ten to get a sense of the anti-poverty policy landscape, take action at the federal level, and hear powerful stories about individuals and families who are struggling to survive in this broken economy.
5. Occupy Our Homes/Home Defenders League: Many of us would like to believe that the foreclosure crisis is over, but the fact is that far too many people are still losing their homes because banks refuse to modify mortgages, fail to return phone calls, or simply (and scandalously) file fraudulent paperwork. If my family or neighbors were ever in a dire situation with a bank that refused to work with them, Occupy Our Homes and the Home Defenders League (HDL) are the allies I would want on my side.
With community partners in more than twenty-five cities and states, these activists help homeowners organize protests, call-ins to bank officials, and other actions to cut through the bureaucratic roadblocks that individuals and families encounter when they deal with the banks. They also show up with neighbors to stop forced evictions.
In May, Occupy and HDL mobilized hundreds of people for a sit-in at the Justice Department, successfully shaming the feds and playing a key role in restarting stalled litigation against Wall Street. They are also collaborating with dozens of local groups, large and small, to rebuild the wealth stripped out of communities of color by pressing cities to use their power of eminent domain to do what the banks have refused to do: enact wide-scale principal reductions.
6. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the War on Poverty, conservatives are deploying bogus “studies” and revisionist history to attempt to discredit programs that are not only vital to people who are struggling, but have been proven effective in preventing much higher poverty rates. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities does a forceful job of countering this misinformation with analyses that—tellingly—conservatives rarely challenge.
During policy debates about programs like SNAP, TANF (welfare), healthcare, housing, Social Security, disability insurance, Medicaid, Medicare and other domestic priorities, you can count on CBPP experts to provide vital, clear-eyed analysis of how government programs work. Follow the work of policy wizards like Arloc Sherman, LaDonna Pavetti, Liz Schott, Jared Bernstein, Robert Greenstein, Douglas Rice, Kathy Ruffing and others to get the information you need to see through the spin, misinformation and outright lies about key policies that combat poverty.
7. Jobs With Justice: For twenty-six years, Jobs With Justice has built powerful coalitions with labor, community, student and faith leaders to protect and advance the rights of working people. Most recently, Jobs With Justice has played a pivotal role in the national Caring Across Generations campaign, which helped secure historic overtime and minimum-wage protections for homecare workers. Its Debt-Free Future campaign has mobilized students and concerned citizens to make college more affordable, expose abusive private lenders and win debt relief for working families. Jobs With Justice is also a critical partner in challenging the exploitative labor practices of employers like Walmart and the large fast food chains, and in protecting the right of immigrant workers to organize without threat of retaliation.
With its savvy use of strategic communications, original research and on-the-ground mobilizing, Jobs With Justice is challenging the structural problems of our economy in creative and effective ways.
8. Western Center on Law and Poverty: Translating grassroots activism into legislative victories will require strong inside/outside partnerships at the local, state and federal levels. One group that has mastered this delicate dance is the Western Center on Law and Poverty in Sacramento, California.
California is the seat of some of the poorest congressional districts in the nation, and it’s also home to more poor Americans than any other state. For over a decade, the state government has been dominated by budget austerity—California was the epicenter of the “no tax” pledge—as well as the kind of budget brinkmanship that now plagues Congress. But in part through the Western Center’s leadership, advocates have moved from simply defending against cuts to articulating a shared vision for a more vibrant, inclusive economy.
The Western Center has spearheaded new alliances among women, immigrants, the working poor, people without homes, the formerly incarcerated, food stamp recipients, labor union members, college students, youth and others, creating new opportunities for low-income people to get involved in effecting change. The result has been a series of notable victories, such as requiring call centers serving Californians who need public assistance to be located in-state in order to create jobs; restoring dental care through Medicaid; enacting protections against excessive bank fines or fees; introducing a Homeless Bill of Rights to outlaw the criminalization of homelessness; and protecting SNAP from federal cuts. The Western Center and its allies have also defended against bad policy proposals like the ALEC-inspired legislation to drug-test public assistance applicants. Follow this group to see how diverse coalitions get results at the state level.
9. Center for Hunger-Free Communities, Witnesses to Hunger: Founded in Philadelphia in 2008, Witnesses to Hunger is a research and advocacy project led by mothers and other caregivers of young children who have experienced hunger and poverty. Through photography and testimonials, Witnesses advocates for change at the local, state and national levels. There are now more than eighty Witnesses in various cities, including Philadelphia, Camden, Boston and Baltimore. (A new chapter in Sacramento is in the works.) In addition to lobbying Congress on issues like food stamps, welfare and affordable housing, Witnesses is vocal in its insistence that people living in poverty be included in conversations among advocates and political leaders in Washington, where low-income people are too often talked about but never heard. Follow this group to learn about poverty and hunger—which policies help, which policies harm—and to work directly alongside those living in poverty.
10. NETWORK: While the real power of an anti-poverty movement will come from the grassroots, a national leader who mobilizes people of faith and speaks with prophetic authority can play a powerful role—especially since the opposition so often cites Scripture as a justification for stripping the safety net.
Sister Simone Campbell and NETWORK, a Catholic social justice lobby, captured the attention of millions of Americans as well as the mainstream media with their 2012 “Nuns on the Bus” Tour challenging Congressman Paul Ryan’s reckless budget proposals. Since then, Sister Simone has proved that she can not only tap into a network of progressive faith-based organizations, but also respond effectively to the absurd proposition that charities and religious institutions can address the needs that arise from a broken economy on their own, without the help of government resources. What’s more, she was masterful during Ryan’s hearing on the War on Poverty, eloquently batting away assertions that social programs create dependence and that the minimum wage should be banned, as well as challenges to her own standing as a Catholic.
While an anti-poverty movement will need nonviolent civil disobedience and avenues to express anger and despair, Sister Simone and NETWORK have shown that it’s possible to beat the opposition at its own game.
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If Amazon Wants New York, Make It Unionize
The Center for Popular Democracy awarded Walgreens its “worst employer” prize because of its treatment of the retail chain’s employees.
...
The Center for Popular Democracy awarded Walgreens its “worst employer” prize because of its treatment of the retail chain’s employees.
Read the full article here.
OPPOSING A MINIMUM WAGE HIKE COULD COST THE GOP THE SENATE
Labor Day has started the sprint to the November election. And with more than 40 percent of U.S. workers struggling on less than $15 an hour, our economy’s tilt toward low-paying jobs has become a...
Labor Day has started the sprint to the November election. And with more than 40 percent of U.S. workers struggling on less than $15 an hour, our economy’s tilt toward low-paying jobs has become a top economic issue this year.
Now, as GOP leaders fret that Donald Trump may drag down Republican incumbents, turning more U.S. Senate races into toss-ups, the Republican majority’s stonewalling of any action to raise the federal minimum wage could cost the party control of Congress.
New polling shows that close to 70 percent of voters in key swing states want an increase in the federal minimum wage—and that 60 percent or more support a $15 minimum wage in six of the seven states polled.
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Even more, the polling shows that candidates’ positions on raising pay could play a pivotal role in this year’s electoral battles for control of the U.S. Senate. The results show that the incumbent Republican U.S. senators locked in close races could lose critical support—and even their seats—over opposition to raising wages for working people.
In Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and New Hampshire, Democratic challengers Katie McGinty, Russ Feingold and Governor Maggie Hassan strengthened their leads over incumbent Republican Senators Pat Toomey, Ron Johnson and Kelly Ayotte when voters were made aware of the senators’ opposition to raising the minimum wage.
And in Arizona, Missouri and North Carolina, Democratic challengers Representative Ann Kirkpatrick, Jason Kander and Deborah Ross pulled ahead of Senators John McCain, Roy Blunt and Richard Burr, flipping those contests on their heads, when voters learned of the senators’ track records opposing raises.
For example, in Arizona—where John McCain has just emerged from his toughest re-election primary ever—a 43-43 tie turns into a 44-38 lead for Kirkpatrick once voters hear about McCain’s opposition to raising pay.
The polling comes as the National Employment Law Project Action Fund, the Center for Popular Democracy Action, the Working Families Organization and other grassroots groups in seven states begin to mobilize voters.
The coalition plans to engage in canvassing, hold candidate forums and wage debate protests, among other actions, to educate and energize voters around candidates’ positions on the raising the minimum wage.
While Donald Trump, who has been all over the map on the minimum wage, has announced he now supports an increase to $10, most Republicans in Congress remain opposed.
Leading Republican pollster Frank Luntz’s firm LuntzGlobal has warned minimum wage opponents, “If you’re fighting against the minimum wage increase, you’re fighting an uphill battle, because most Americans, even most Republicans, are OK with raising the minimum wage.”
Farm workers pick vegetables on a farm in Rancho Santa Fe, California, on August 31. Paul Sonn writes that Republican U.S. senators locked in close races could lose their seats over opposition to raising wages.
While Congress has refused to act, over the past three and a half years, more than 50 states, cities and counties, as well as individual companies, have stepped forward to approve minimum wage increases, delivering raises to 17 million workers.
And 10 million of those workers are in states or cities that have approved phased-in $15 minimum wages, raising pay for more than one in three workers in California and New York and beginning to reverse decades of growing pay inequality.
Historically, raising the minimum wage enjoyed the same bipartisan backing in Congress that it does with voters. But over the past 20 years, increasing polarization in Washington and the growing role of money in politics have led many Republicans to abandon their support.
As a result, the federal minimum wage today remains frozen at just $7.25 an hour. And taxpayers are being forced to pick up the tab, as low-wage workers in the seven states just polled must rely on $150 billion per year in public assistance to make up for their inadequate paychecks.
Candidates’ positions on the minimum wage have made a difference in close U.S. senate races before. Ten years ago, in Missouri and Montana, Democrats Claire McCaskill and Jon Tester successfully used their support for a higher minimum wage to highlight the difference between them and their opponents, Republican Senators Jim Talent and Conrad Burns, who both opposed raising the wage.
McCaskill and Tester rode the issue to an Election Day victory, helping to break a logjam in Congress and delivering the first federal minimum wage increase in 10 years in 2007.
With the public demanding action to boost pay, the Republican majority and individual candidates this fall face a clear choice: stop standing in the way of a long overdue federal minimum wage increase—or risk their political future.
By Paul K. Sonn
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What working moms really need for Mother's Day this year
When Mother's Day became a national holiday in the U.S. more than a century ago, women were a relative rarity in the workforce. Today's mom, by contrast, is largely a working mom.
In half...
When Mother's Day became a national holiday in the U.S. more than a century ago, women were a relative rarity in the workforce. Today's mom, by contrast, is largely a working mom.
In half of American households, women are either the primary breadwinner or contribute more than 40 percent of the income. For most families, the added income from women going to work is the only thing that's kept family income steady, as individual worker wages have stagnated for the better part of four decades.
Read full article here.
Echen a los codiciosos buitres residenciales
Para los estadounidenses y, en particular, las personas de color, la propiedad de vivienda es una fuerza económica estabilizadora y esencial desde hace tiempo. Ofrece la oportunidad de que las...
Para los estadounidenses y, en particular, las personas de color, la propiedad de vivienda es una fuerza económica estabilizadora y esencial desde hace tiempo. Ofrece la oportunidad de que las familias aumenten su seguridad económica en el trascurso de las décadas.
Por eso la crisis de ejecuciones hipotecarias fue tan difícil, en especial para los latinos y las personas de raza negra. Significó que su patrimonio, en ocasiones acumulado por varias generaciones, desapareció casi instantáneamente.
Ambos recordamos claramente las difíciles conversaciones que tuvimos con vecinos que pasaban apuros durante el caos. Aquí en Nueva York, como en todas partes, a pesar de que las personas de color no constituían la mayoría de los propietarios de vivienda, se veían afectadas por las ejecuciones hipotecarias con mayor frecuencia. Eso significó que al perder su patrimonio, más y más de ellos se fueron de la ciudad y nuestros vecindarios cambiaron.
Desafortunadamente, aún estamos viendo los efectos. Una purga lenta que se viene produciendo desde hace años a medida que la ciudad se aburguesa se ha facilitado por las ejecuciones hipotecarias y alquileres cada vez más altos, con los que más familias han dejado de ser propietarias para pasar a ser inquilinas. Muchas familias trabajadoras que han perdido su vivienda ahora además tienen dificultad para alquilar, debido al costo en aumento en el mercado.
Wall Street ha encontrado un socio inverosímil en estos desalojos: el Departamento de Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano de Estados Unidos (HUD por su sigla en inglés). En todo el país, cientos de miles enfrentan ejecuciones hipotecarias. A pesar de la misión de HUD de “crear comunidades sólidas y sostenibles que incluyan a todos, con viviendas económicas y de calidad”, el departamento ha operado un programa que vende decenas de miles de hogares muy descontados a especuladores de Wall Street.
Cuando los fondos de especulación y firmas inversionistas privadas adquieren estos préstamos, por lo general fuerzan a los propietarios a dejar su vivienda —por medio de ejecuciones hipotecarias o ventas al descubierto (que no cubren las obligaciones hipotecarias) — y luego convierten las residencias en caras propiedades para alquilar, lo que hace que aumenten los precios en todo el vecindario.
En un extraño vuelco del destino, Blackstone Group, una de las más grandes firmas privadas de inversión en el mundo, ahora también es el mayor propietario de casas unifamiliares en alquiler en Estados Unidos. Entonces, Blackstone no solo está desalojando a familias de sus casas; también está sacando a familias trabajadoras de sus vecindarios.
Sin embargo, la práctica continúa. En tan solo los últimos seis meses, HUD ha vendido más de 7,000 préstamos a fondos de especulación y firmas privadas de inversión.
HUD ha programado otra venta masiva de hipotecas afectadas para el 18 de mayo.
HUD, dirigido por el secretario Julián Castro, debe revertir su curso antes de que sea demasiado tarde. Debe poner un alto a esta venta en subasta de viviendas a Wall Street. En vez, debe colaborar con el gobierno de la ciudad de Nueva York y partes interesadas en la comunidad para poner estos préstamos afectados en manos de entidades sin fines de lucro u otros compradores impulsados por una misión, quienes ayudarán a las familias a conservar sus casas.
No se trata simplemente de ilusas propuestas por liberales. Cada vez hay más instituciones financieras dedicadas al desarrollo comunitario que han conseguido capital y están listas y dispuestas a adquirir estos préstamos hipotecarios en mora y colaborar con familias en apuros.
Usan la reducción del monto principal debido para ayudar a modificar los préstamos afectados y hacer que los pagos sean más costeables. Cuando es realmente imposible evitar las ejecuciones hipotecarias, estas entidades sin fines de lucro formulan planes para la disposición de las propiedades que toman en cuenta las necesidades de vivienda económica de la comunidad que las rodea.
Estos préstamos hipotecarios en mora están vinculados con los propietarios y las viviendas en apuros en nuestros vecindarios. Vender nuestro inventario residencial a los propios depredadores que los pusieron en esta situación no solo demuestra poca visión de futuro, sino que daña nuestras comunidades irreparablemente.
Los especuladores de Wall Street se enriquecieron creando la crisis de vivienda que causó estragos en nuestras comunidades. No se debe permitir que vuelvan a enriquecerse aprovechándose de los restos de los vecindarios que ya han destrozado.
By Ana Maria Archila Y Jonathan Westin
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The latest fight for employee rights: work schedule predictability
The latest fight for employee rights: work schedule predictability
Efforts to boost the minimum wage have gotten a lot of attention lately and proponents have scored some major victories. But workers rights advocates are now asking: What good is a wage boost if...
Efforts to boost the minimum wage have gotten a lot of attention lately and proponents have scored some major victories. But workers rights advocates are now asking: What good is a wage boost if workers don’t know how many hours they’re working every week?
Read the full article here.
Municipal Court Reforms Gaining Momentum, But How Far Will They Go?
St. Louis Post Dispatch - February 2, 2014, by Jeffrey Kohler - While law professors and activists call for dramatic reforms for municipal courts in St. Louis County — including getting rid of...
St. Louis Post Dispatch - February 2, 2014, by Jeffrey Kohler - While law professors and activists call for dramatic reforms for municipal courts in St. Louis County — including getting rid of them — more moderate changes are being pushed by an ad-hoc committee of municipal court officials.
The Municipal Court Improvement Committee, mostly judges, prosecutors and court officials, has introduced several proposed changes, according to a memo written by its chairman, Frank Vatterott, a defense attorney and veteran municipal court official who has been a judge in Overland since 1991.
But a rival group says the proposals do not go far enough and said the committee was “the foxes guarding the henhouse.”
The committee’s first change would be to encourage the courts to adopt uniform schedules for fines, Vatterott said. Several courts vary widely in the fines assessed for the same charge, which, he said, was unfair.
Next, the committee would push for a uniform schedule for bonds, although it still polling the courts to determine how significant the problem is.
Then the committee would make volunteer lawyers available to offer legal advice to municipal court defendants. The committee also would advocate for cities to establish municipal court fees to pay for public defenders.
The committee also proposes expanding the use of community service in lieu of fines for ordinance violations. The change could end the problem of poor people burdening their families with requests to help pay fines. The committee also proposes setting up a uniform system for allowing financially strapped defendants to pay fines in installments.
The changes would be voluntary, but in a memo to the county’s 79 municipal courts, Vatterott urged full participation. “Keep an open mind and consider the beauty of uniformity,” he wrote.
The next step would be getting courts to agree to the changes.
Vatterott said the courts should bring about the reforms, not activists, law professors or the state Supreme Court. “Our judges and our court personnel are the road warriors. We know best how to improve our courts.”
The committee’s ideas seem to have support from higher in the state courts.
In a letter to the committee, Maura B. McShane, presiding judge of the St. Louis County Circuit Court, which oversees the municipal courts, wrote that municipal court judges should support the committee “to bring integrity and fairness to the court.”
“I agree with your committee that our municipal courts should consider adopting changes voluntarily and as soon as possible wherever they need to be made to restore confidence in our courts,” she wrote.
Roy L. Richter, a judge with Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District who serves as chairman of a committee that trains municipal judges, wrote in a letter to the committee that most municipal courts were operating properly and the media’s coverage of them has been inaccurate. But he urged court officials to make a good system better.
Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment, a grass-roots group that has rallied for municipal court changes, on Monday questioned the wisdom of leaving reform to the lawyers and judges who benefit most from the money-making aspects of the system.
Jeff Ordower, executive director of the group, said while Vatterott’s committee has offered some ideas that they agree with — such as creating standard fines and allowing people who cannot pay to do community service — the proposals do not go far enough.
“It starts with the police and how they profile and then it ends with the justice system, where you have a cabal of lawyers and judges who benefit from that,” he said. “We need to change the status quo, shake it up and abolish it.”
Ordower’s group held a press conference outside the office of St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger, after releasing its own proposals in a five-page report: “Transforming St. Louis County’s Racist Municipal Courts.”
MORE has proposed eliminating “failure to appear” charges altogether, challenging the notion that “if you roll a stop sign you’re now a hardened criminal and should be facing jail time,” Ordower said.
The group is also calling on the courts to provide “real amnesty” by eliminating their backlog of fines on old traffic cases.
And jail time should not be an option for nonviolent municipal offenses, the group argued. MORE has also proposed that fines be proportionate to a person’s ability to pay.
While Vatterott’s committee wants to bring in volunteer lawyers to advise people on court days, MORE wants public defenders appointed routinely for indigent defendants, just like in state court.
Vatterott said he did not want to comment on the MORE report.
MORE pointed out that someone can be charged with failing to appear in one municipal court even if it was because they were already locked up on a charge from another municipal court.
“If I’m physically unable to appear because I’m in the custody of another court, then there should be some kind of dispensation for that — and there’s not, and that happens to many, many people,” said Derek Laney, an organizer with MORE who said it happened to him recently.
The group pointed out that it is impossible for a person who is arrested on a traffic warrant to take care of all their outstanding warrants from multiple municipalities without being shipped from one jail to the next.
MORE wants four regional courts to handle all of the county’s municipal cases, similar to the three courts that are now used for the county’s unincorporated regions.
The group held its press conference outside Stenger’s office to pressure him to pressure the courts.
Stenger responded with a statement: “During my campaign, I talked about the need for changes in the courts located in St. Louis County municipalities. Among other things, I would like to see these courts reduce fines and costs for indigent defendants. The courts also need to give some latitude regarding warrants issued for failure to appear. I will support any reasonable state legislation that addresses the current problems.”
Some drivers interviewed Monday were unconvinced municipal courts were anything but revenue generators. Nerissa Grigsby of Olivette said she recently mailed in a check for a speeding ticket in St. Ann. She said she hadn’t been speeding, and said she couldn’t reach court officials to discuss the case. Speaking about proposals to abolish municipal court, she said, “I totally agree with that.”
Sean Bailey, 35, is homeless with a 3-year-old daughter. He just got a part-time job in the restaurant business and is staying with a friend in south St. Louis. While trying to get his life back on track, municipal court fines are both far from his mind and an unavoidable reality. He said any reforms of the municipal courts would be welcome, but they’d have to be far-reaching — like the ones MORE is proposing — to make a difference.
Bailey had tickets in Ferguson and Florissant for which he accumulated fines totaling $1,950.
Bailey said he’s tried to show up to court and pay when he could but missed court when he couldn’t and that just resulted in more fines. More recently he tried to participate in an amnesty program in Florissant, but the court “wouldn’t budge” from a $100 fee to cancel his arrest warrant.
He couldn’t afford it, so his warrant remains.
“The reason these people aren’t paying like everybody else is simply because they don’t have it,” he said. “Nobody wants to go to jail. I think a fresh start would definitely help.”
Steve Giegerich of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
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NYC pagará por abogados en casos de deportación
El Diario - July 18, 2013, by Claudia Torrens - Nueva York se prepara para dar otro paso en su tradición de ayuda a inmigrantes: planea pagar los abogados de oficio que necesitan cuando se...
El Diario - July 18, 2013, by Claudia Torrens - Nueva York se prepara para dar otro paso en su tradición de ayuda a inmigrantes: planea pagar los abogados de oficio que necesitan cuando se encuentran en una corte de inmigración y enfrentan la deportación.
Algunos inmigrantes con o sin papeles en la ciudad que enfrenten la expulsión de Estados Unidos podrán a partir de finales de este año o el 2014 presentarse frente al juez de inmigración con un abogado de oficio pagado con fondos municipales, reduciendo así sus posibilidades de ser deportados porque ya no estarán solos en la corte. Activistas, un magistrado federal y funcionarios locales planean anunciar el viernes que la ciudad ha destinado $500,000 a financiar un programa piloto que ofrecerá representación legal a inmigrantes.
Brittny Saunders, de la organización Center for Popular Democracy, dijo a The Associated Press que esta es la primera vez que un programa así se implementa en una municipalidad de Estados Unidos.
"La intención que tenemos a través de este programa piloto es lograr información sobre los beneficios que la representación legal supone tanto para un individuo en detención y enfrentando la deportación como para su familia, su comunidad y la ciudad entera", dijo Saunders. "Esperamos que este programa sea un modelo para otras comunidades alrededor del país".
Inmigrantes que acaban en las cortes de inmigración y que enfrentaban la deportación no tienen derecho a ser defendidos por un abogado de oficio. Pueden contratar a un abogado privado pero muchos inmigrantes no tienen el dinero para pagar por ese servicio. Es por ese motivo que la ciudad, varios activistas y un juez federal interesado en el tema llamado Robert Kaztmann han unido esfuerzos para ofrecer ayuda a inmigrantes en esta situación.
Saunders dijo que en el estado de Nueva York una media de 2,800 inmigrantes se encuentra anualmente en proceso de deportación sin acceso a asistencia legal.
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My Daughter And I Dressed As Handmaids And Got Arrested To Protest Brett Kavanaugh
My Daughter And I Dressed As Handmaids And Got Arrested To Protest Brett Kavanaugh
The whole time though, we were together with our community of activists and had people waiting for us on the other side. We all sang songs of protest and resistance together, and I could feel the...
The whole time though, we were together with our community of activists and had people waiting for us on the other side. We all sang songs of protest and resistance together, and I could feel the support from everyone around me. It’s hard to explain what an incredible feeling it is to be surrounded by a community that has your back, and I’m especially thankful to organizers and activists from groups like the Center for Popular Democracy and Housing Works for providing action and jail support.
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NATIONAL GROUPS CALL FOR DNC TO CAN SUPERDELEGATE SYSTEM
Fourteen national organizations boasting more than 10 million members are calling on the Democratic National Committee to end the use of superdelegates to elect the presidential nominee.
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Fourteen national organizations boasting more than 10 million members are calling on the Democratic National Committee to end the use of superdelegates to elect the presidential nominee.
The move to end the use of superdelegates was pushed vigorously during the campaign by Sen. Bernie Sanders but many of those supporting the effort include backers of Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee.
DNC Rules Committee member and Rhode Island State Representative Aaron Regunberg has pledged to introduce language to end superdelegates, and several other Rules Committee members have agreed to support the effort at the Democratic National Convention at the end of July.
The organizations said in a joint letter that the superdelegates, who are typically party officials, are not elected by voters and can skew the nominating process. They say the superdelegates carry as much as the combined weight as pledged delegates from 24 states, the District of Columbia and four territories.
Organizations signing on to the letter include: Courage Campaign, Credo, Daily Kos, Demand Progress/Rootstrikers, Democracy for America, Center for Popular Democracy, MoveOn, National Nurses United, NDN, The Other 98%, Presente.org, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Progressive Democrats of America, and Social Security Works.
Simon Rosenberg, the president of NDN and a former DNC staffer, who supported Hillary Clinton during the primary, said the use of superdelegates is “discordant with broader and vital efforts by Democrats to modernize and improve our democracy. If we want the voice of everyday people to be louder and more consequential in our nation’s politics, it must also be so in our Party.”
Another Clinton supporter, Joe Trippi, who ran Howard Dean’s unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2004, said a key party goal is to “empower voices from the bottom up. The top down idea of superdelegates is obsolete and is a good place to start.”
Sanders’ supporter Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a superdelegate and former DNC official, also condemned the practice.
“The nominee of our party should be decided by who earns the most votes —not party insiders, unelected officials, or the federal lobbyists that have been given a vote in our nominating process. The current system stands against grassroots activists and the will of the voters,” she said. “We’ve seen a historic number of new voters and activists join our political process in the past year, many of whom are rightly upset at how rigged the political system can seem at times. If we want to strengthen our democracy and our party, we must end the superdelegate process.”
By MARK JOHNSON
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