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WV Citizen Action Group Action Alert |
April
9 2013 Alert Archive |
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Getting Closer to Clean Elections: Senate Judiciary Advances HB2805
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Resolution to Overturn Citizen's United Passes Senate Judiciary
Secretary of State's Office Advancing Elections Bills
The Secretary of State's Office released this update on bills they are supporting earlier today:
SB 477- Applying to register to vote electronically
This bill is pro-citizen, pro-county clerk, pro-Secretary of State,
pro-progress because it saves everyone time and money.
Creates a more efficient means for submitting an APPLICATION. The clerks
have the final say of accepting a registration like they currently have.
It reduces the risk of APPLICATION getting lost in the process and
provides an audit trail. It still allows for the use of the paper
application.
It just passed House Judiciary yesterday.
As POLITICO reported last week, it is the one piece of legislation where
both Republicans and Democrats can agree. Here is the
link to that story.
HB 2805: Public Financing Of Supreme Court Candidates
This makes the pilot program permanent. It is an important piece of
legislation.
It passed the House and now goes to Senate Judiciary on the agenda
today.
Senator Kessler has been supportive of this and made it his intentions
not to send it to Senate Finance so we are hoping it stays that way and
can pass out as is.
SB 535: List Maintenance of voter registration files
This bill makes it easier to maintain the voter registration rolls and
cleans up the rolls.
This bill would go a long way in the concern of having people on rolls
that may no longer live in the county and alleviate concerns from all
sides of the issue.
It has passed the Senate and is in the House Finance Committee.
Getting
Closer: Senate Judiciary Advances HB 2805
We are getting closer to making public financing a permanent part of
WV Supreme Court elections. Yesterday (Monday) afternoon, the Senate
Judiciary Committee advanced HB 2805 without any amendments.
Although the bill must still go to the Finance Committee for further
consideration, we are grateful that Senator Corey Palumbo decided
not to take up the "extension" amendment.
With the session ending on Saturday, we will be working to get HB
2805 on the Senate Finance Committee agenda as soon as possible. You
can help us by contacting Senate Finance Chairman Roman Prezioso at
roman.prezioso@wvsenate.gov or (304) 357-7961 with the following
message:
Thank you for your support and sponsorship of SB 413, making the WV
Supreme Court Public Campaign Financing Program permanent. I
understand the House companion (HB 2805) has been recommended by the
Senate Judiciary Committee will be before your committee soon.
Making public financing a permanent part of WV Supreme Court
elections is the best way to rein in campaign costs, keep special
interest money out of the courtroom and eliminate the resulting
perception that justice is for sale. Please put HB 2805 on Finance
Committee as soon as possible. This legislation is critical to
ensuring the fairness and impartiality of the WV Supreme Court of
Appeals. Thanks again for your support.
Calls and e-mails to Senate Finance Committee members
are also needed at this time. A list of committee members and their
contact information
can be found here.
Resolution
to Overturn Citizen's United Passes Senate Judiciary
About 30 citizen lobbyists turned out at the Capitol yesterday to
call on the Judiciary Committee to pass Senate Resolution 24.
The effort worked!! The Judiciary Committee voted to
pass the resolution onto the house floor with a recommendation that
the full senate vote in support of the resolution to overturn
Citizens United vs FEC! We'll keep you updated on the
vote when the full senate takes it up sometime this week.
See a photo of West Virginian's for Democracy in Action in today's Gazette
Help
Us Pull the Pentagon Pork
Monday, April 15th is tax day when we file our federal taxes for the year 2012.
Join Patriots for Peace and West Virginia
Citizen Action Group
Charleston Main Post Office
1002 Lee St. East
5:15pm to 6:15 pm.
The purpose is to educate late filers as to where their money was spent in fiscal year 2012 and how much the pentagon will gobble up in 2013. West Virginians will be paying more than 33 million dollars to help finance the Afghanistan war. That same amount of money could be used to hire 608 grade school teachers or 751 police officers or 6265 scholarships for University students or convert 11,619 households to all solar energy. It is past time to refocus our priorities!!!
Make a Call for Maternity Coverage.
SB 22, which would provide maternity coverage to dependent daughters is up for a vote in the house Judiciary. Please take a few minutes to email members of the judiciary by clicking here. Many women in this state lack access to the prenatal care necessary for a healthy mom and baby -- in fact, public employees covered by PEIA currently cannot get such care for their daughters. We agree with our friends at WVFree and Planned parenthood -- our state workers deserve much better than this.
Movie
on Hunger Hits Home
By Gary Zuckett,
garyz@wvcag.org
As I watched “A Place at the Table” last night I was shocked to
learn of the vast increase (from 20 to 50 million) in our citizens
who go hungry over the past forty years. The film was hosted at the
Culture Center by the legislature’s select committee on Children &
Poverty and Senate President Kessler and Majority Leader Unger were
there to introduce the film and the panel of speakers made up of
Film Director Lori Silverbush and Food Expert Dr Jannet Poppendieck
along with two reps from Participant Media who funded the film.
Discussion was lively after the showing and some hard questions were
asked including connecting low wage jobs and poverty to our current
hunger crisis. The panelists continually focused on the diversion of
Billions of our tax dollars for price supports for agribusiness
calling them unjustified, unnecessary and outdated. They felt a
diversion of even a fraction of these billions into increasing
programs that provide access to healthy food for hungry citizens was
at least a partial answer. Panelists also pointed out that if
charity (i.e. foodbanks, church kitchens, etc.) were going to solve
the problem it would already have. The fact is that food insecurity
(not knowing where the next meal is coming from) is still on the
rise despite the heroic efforts of faith and civic groups .
There is a companion book of the same name available now in
bookstores and the movie is available on Netflix and other venues.
Folks who want more info can text FOOD to 77177 or go to
www.takepart.com/table
to watch a trailer of the film and sign up to become a food security
activist.
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