Coalition to Ensure People of Color Have Role in Health Care Debate
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A coalition of African American and Latino groups, along with other civil rights and grassroots organizations, launched a campaign today to make sure the voices of people of color are heard in the final weeks of the health care reform debate.
A series of TV and print ads in English and Spanish will run in key states and urge viewers and readers to let members of Congress know the importance of health care reform to people of color.
In a press conference today, leaders from Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the NAACP, National Council of La Raza and Campaign for Community Change said recent studies have shown the inequality in the health care system falls most heavily on communities of color. People of color are more likely to suffer and die from diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases.
Supreme Court Reaffirms Key Voting Rights Provision
In a narrow ruling today, the U.S. Supreme Court preserved a key component of the Voting Rights Act that requires certain states and localities with a history of voting discrimination to submit changes in voting procedures to the Department of Justice or a federal court before they can take effect.
The 8-1ruling keeps in place one of the most important rules that fight voter discrimination. The surpisingly strong majority also deals a setback to conservative groups that have long sought to weaken federal voting rights laws. Clarence Thomas was the only justice to vote to void the voter protection provision.
Employee Free Choice Act: A Signature Battle for Our Future
At the three-day America’s Future Now! conference going on now in Washington, D.C., many workshops are focused on empowering people and building a stronger, fairer economy, and few issues are more critical to those goals than the Employee Free Choice Act and restoring workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life.
At a session this morning on the Employee Free Choice Act, some of the people most involved in the fight to pass the bill discussed why we need it and how we’re going to make it happen.
Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, a co-sponsor of the bill, said the leadership in the Senate is strongly behind the bill and he won’t back down on giving real freedom to workers who want a union, making sure workers can get a first contract and that there are meaningful penalties to violations of workers’ freedom.
If senators refuse to compromise, if they refuse to come to the table in good faith, I will take the original bill to the floor and demand an up-or-down vote. We will see where everyone stands, and working people can vote accordingly.
Sotomayor: ‘Rule of Law Basis for All Our Basic Rights’
Sonia Sotomayor grew up in a South Bronx, N.Y., housing project after her parents moved there from Puerto Rico during World War II. Today, she is a U.S. Senate confirmation vote away from taking a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.
President Obama today nominated the U.S. Court of Appeals judge for the 2nd Circuit to the High Court where, if confirmed, she would be the first Hispanic to serve. Says Obama:
What Sonia will bring to the court…is not only the knowledge and experience acquired over a course of a brilliant legal career, but the wisdom accumulated from an inspiring life’s journey.
Civil Rights Leaders Urge Passage of Employee Free Choice
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Martin Luther King Jr. often drew the parallels and connections between the civil rights and union movements. Today, on the eve of the anniversary of King’s assassination, national civil rights leaders called for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would give workers the choice of how to form a union.
During a telephone press conference, Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), a coalition of some 200 organizations, pointed out that unions have been one of the main vehicles for African Americans to move into the middle class.
The Employee Free Choice Act has been largely written about as a labor bill but those of us in the civil rights community know it is so much more…workers’ rights are civil rights; and that the right to organize is a civil and human rights issue of the first magnitude.
