Advocacy

The public usually puts the US Postal Service at the top of its list when asked to rate how well they view government agencies. The public also takes the mail system for granted, until it’s under attack. Ironically, in this age of the internet and e commerce, the USPS became critical to our democracy because the pandemic resulted in 75 percent of the country being eligible to vote by mail in the 2020 election.

It feels so luxurious to slip on a soft cotton shirt or slide onto soft cotton sheets. If the cotton is grown organically, it feels even better because we are helping the environment. But where did the cotton come from? Who worked in the fields? Who spun it into thread and then wove it into fabric in the mills?

January 27, 2022     Statement by President Biden on International Holocaust Remembrance Day   JANUARY 27, 2022 Today, we attempt to fill a piercing silence from our past—to give voice to the six million Jews who were systematically and...

It has become obvious that reforms are need in many areas of our democracy, and while I focus on legislation at the federal level, do not overlook what is happening locally.

Our Founding Fathers understood history. They saw that democracies are susceptible to demagogues, to majority rule becoming mob rule, to the subjugation of minorities, and to trampling on individual rights. And so they sought to curb the excesses of democracy through representation, separation of powers, checks and balances, and the protection of individual rights.

The Afghan refugee crisis has rapidly increased the pace of change in refugee resettlement in the United States. Last month the Biden Administration announced a new program, in partnership with the Community Sponsorship Hub (CSH), a project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers, Inc., to launch the Sponsor Circle Program for Afghans. This program allows groups of private citizens to sponsor Afghan evacuees during the initial resettlement process.

Even in the middle of a UN-declared Code Red climate crisis, oil and gas corporations are planning new drilling projects. Subsidies from the federal government are largely used to reduce operating expenses and fossil fuel production would probably become unprofitable without them, an argument that climate activists have been using for years.

“The vote is precious. It is the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democratic society, and we must use it.”
—John Lewis

After historic voter turnout in 2020, 18 states enacted 30 laws that restrict access to the vote (between January 1 and July 14, 2021) while at the same time at least 25 states enacted 54 laws with provisions to expand voting access. This deepens a national divide where the right to vote appears to depend on where in the USA you live.

n response to the recent Supreme Court decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) CEO Sheila Katz issued the following statement:
“The decision by the Supreme Court in favor of Arizona’s restrictive voting laws will negatively impact voters across the country—particularly those who are already marginalized. By allowing the laws in Arizona to remain in place, the Court has further weakened the Voting Rights Act, and once more demonstrated the need for Congress to take action to pass the For The People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.