Florida Seniors Speak Out Against Voter Suppression
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Laura Markwardt, senior communications associate at the Alliance for Retired Americans, sends us this.
Hundreds of Florida seniors and others turned out for a rally in Tampa Friday against voter suppression. The rally was followed by a hearing inside the courthouse about the new law chaired by Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin who came to investigate whether the state law denies voters their constitutional rights. Durbin is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights.
Recent changes in Florida’s election rules will have a dramatic impact on Florida’s seniors and other voters. The new law passed in the Florida legislature cuts early voting from 14 days to seven days before the election, which hurts many seniors who vote early because they are physically unable to stand in a long line or make it to the polls on Election Day. Limiting the ability to vote early will indeed impact Florida’s seniors and will disproportionately affect African Americans, Latinos, working families and young voters.
Florida Alliance for Retired Americans President Tony Fransetta spoke at the rally about his concerns about voter suppression saying,
The law is an effort to limit voter turnout – and it shouldn’t stand.
In addition to his senior peers, who will be severely impacted by the new law, Fransetta, a retired Read the rest of this entry »
Gov. Scott Set to Hand Florida’s Prisons to Corporate America
Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest, a national resource center on privatization and responsible contracting, sends us this.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-controlled legislature are moving fast to privatize all 29 prison facilities in 18 counties in southern Florida.
Last year, the GOP prison privatization proposal was ruled unconstitutional because it was wrapped into a budget proposal, a violation of Florida laws that requires policy changes be in separate laws. Tallahassee Judge Jackie Fulford ruled that the lawmakers rushed the process.
The privatizers aren’t making the same mistake this time. Not only are they proposing to privatize the prisons but they are changing the law to be able to privatize any service as fast, as easily and as secretly as possible. Under the latest proposals, an agency would not have to report its privatization of a program or service until after the contract is signed. And they also would eliminate a current legal requirement to do a cost-benefit analysis before privatizing any government function.
Working America Sets Up Return Desk for Voters With Buyers’ Remorse
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We’ve all been there. The salesman was slick. The promises were big. We really wanted to believe. So we plunked down our cash and went home ready to lose weight, grow hair, find love and change our lives.
Then we got home and thought, “OMG. Did I really fall for that?” Yep, buyer’s remorse. We’ve all had a case or two of it. Most of the time, though, you can put the offending product in the corner of the garage or in the back of the closet and forget about it. However, when your currency is your vote and the product is a politician, you just can’t shove it aside and move on.
But this summer, Working America launched a Buyer’s Remorse campaign to let voters in five states return their ballots for the politicians who made big promises about jobs and the economy that turned out to be as truthful as a 3 a.m. infomercial. Instead of the promised jobs and fixed economy, voters only got a box full of shoddy political games, extremist rhetoric and corporate coziness.
In Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, Michigan and Florida, Working America members set up Buyer’s Remorse booths at several sites where voters could return their ballots for Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), Gov. Susana Martinez (R-N.M.), Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.).
Perry Closing Gap on Scott in TWU’s Worst Governor Contest
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We haven’t checked the national polls lately to see how Texas Gov. Rick Perry is doing in his I’m-more-right-wing-conservative-than-thou race to capture the Republican presidential nomination. But it looks like he’s closing in on the lead in another important election—the Transport Workers’ (TWU‘s) Worst Governor Ever summer special election.
In a new video for this humorous look at some seriously bad governors when it comes to working families—such as Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, Ohio’s John Kasich, New Jersey’s Chris Christie and others—we find Florida’s Rick Scott basking in the glow of an early lead in the race for the title.
But wait—Perry just may pull ahead of Scott after touting his wildly unpopular voter ID bill and rampant teacher layoffs, as qualifications for the dubious crown.
Florida Gov. Pays Just $360/Year for Health Care
Not that we want to skew the Transport Workers (TWU) contest for worst governor, but here’s a doozy about one of the contest’s nominees.
Seems Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a government-bashing, tea party follower is paying just $30 a month for health care—state taxpayers are covering the rest. Yet Scott easily handed over $73 million of his own cash to get elected.
According to Mother Jones, Scott has:
laid off thousands of Sunshine State employees, slashed their benefits, turned down (most of) the federal government’s health care dollars, and put extra financial pressure on Florida retirees and Medicaid recipients. But Scott and his dependents pay one-fifth what a janitor in the state Capitol pays for health insurance…and less than 3 percent of what a retired state trooper pays for life-saving coverage.
Add Scott to the list of anti-government hypocrites who decry public service unless they benefit from it.
It’s a Tough Call. Who’s the Worst Governor Ever?
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There have been a lot of really bad governors over the years. But working families are confronted with quite a bumper crop of despicable state chief executives who are hell-bent on eliminating good middle-class jobs, giving the wealthy and corporations big tax breaks, undermining voters’ rights, cutting funding for education and jobs and more.
But in this era of Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, Ohio’s John Kasich, New Jersey’s Chris Christie and a rogue’s gallery of others, just who is the worst? The Transport Workers (TWU) says it’s time to put that question to a vote.
TWU’s just-launched “Worst Governor Ever” (see video) summer election will decide.
TWU President James Little says the election—part of the union’s Workers’ Rights Are Human Rights campaign—will expose the extreme agenda of reactionary governors and let Americans send a message to the governor of their choosing that he or she is the worst governor ever.
Extreme Political Agenda, Not Jobs, Behind Budget Cuts Across Country
Andy Richards on our Field Communications staff highlights the anti-jobs agenda of Republican state and national lawmakers.
Earlier this year, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels sat down with NPR. During the interview, he was asked whether he thought pushing a partisan political agenda that includes deep budget cuts were worth it even if it cost a lot of jobs. He empathetically answered, “Yes.” This zeal for moving extreme partisan policies at all costs has taken hold across the country with anti-working family governors and their political allies. These lawmakers ran on promises of creating jobs but instead are leaving behind massive job loss after passing ideologically-driven budgets with cuts to education, health care and other vital services that hurt working families and local communities.
Take for example Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida and Michigan. Reports show that the punishing budget cuts and partisan agenda of Govs. Scott Walker, John Kasich, Rick Scott and Rick Snyder could cost more than 100,000 jobs. Here are the numbers, state-by-state:
- More than 21,000 jobs are likely to be lost because of Gov. Walker’s budget, according to a UW-Madison economist study.
- Innovation Ohio estimates Gov. Kasich’s budget will cause the loss of more than 51,000 jobs.
- Gov. Scott’s budget would cost well over 14,000 jobs, according to estimates from the St. Peterburg Times.
- A report released in Michigan last week shows that nearly 15,000 education jobs because of Gov. Snyder’s budget cuts.
Add the 28,000 jobs lost from the refusal of Walker, Kasich and Scott to build high-speed rail in their states to that total and you are well above 100,000.
But these four states are not the only ones facing expected job loss from painful political choices from of extreme legislators. Read the rest of this entry »
TWU Reminds Governors, ‘The People Lead’
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In this video “letter” to governors who have been leading the attack on working families and workers’ rights, the Transport Workers (TWU) union says:
You have disrespected our communities and we are united in stopping this affront to democracy and human rights.
Aimed at governors, including Wisconsin’s Scott Walker (R), Ohio’s John Kasich (R), Michigan’s Rick Snyder (R), Florida’s Rick Scott (R), Maine’s Paul LePage (R) and others, the video says:
In capital city after capital city you have put your politics before the people. You have distorted the truth, hijacked the process, and disrespected the communities we have worked so hard to build….Our workplace rights and protections cannot be erased by your signature, that’s only emboldened by your hubris. You may govern, but we the people lead.
Republicans Aiming to Take Away Voting Rights in 36 States
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More evidence that Republicans are determined to grab as much power as they can at the expense of everyone but the rich. Not satisfied with attacking the rights of workers, Republicans in 36 states are going after the most sacred American right—the right to vote. The We Party reports that through a myriad of proposals, they are trying to suppress the votes of traditionally Democratic voters, including minorities, the poor, people who live in rural areas, seniors and students.
Last week, the Wisconsin Senate added another chapter to its anti-democratic record by passing a voter ID bill that the non-partisan state Legislative Fiscal Bureau says would disenfranchise 20 percent of the state’s voters, especially in rural areas. The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University estimates that 11 percent of voters nationwide do not have official IDs that would pass muster for these new and proposed state laws.
Fla. Nurses Win Union Voice; NNU Puts New Spin on Bad Govs
In Planation, Fla., registered nurses at Florida Medical Center voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to join the National Nurses Organizing Committee-Florida, an affiliate of the National Nurses United (NNU).
The 250 RN’s join the more than 5,000 Florida nurses in 14 hospitals around the state who have recently voted for a union voice to help them boost patient care. Says Delia Kan, an intensive care RN at the hospital:
Florida Medical Center RNs want to improve nurse-to- patient staffing in our hospital which will help us retain and recruit experienced nurses. RNs are gaining the power to have an effective independent voice in everyday patient care decisions that will improve the quality of care that our patients and our community deserve.
Also today, NNU announced a new online game show, Wheel of Misfortune. Unlike Wheel of Fortune where most of the slots are winners, there’s not a single winner on this wheel.
The game divides the Wheel of Misfortune into 10 slots, one each for the 10 worst governors in the natoon: Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Jan Brewer of Arizona, Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, Rick Perry of Texas, Rick Scott of Florida, Paul LePage of Maine, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Rick Snyder of Michigan, Chris Christie of New Jersey, and John Kasich of Ohio. Read the rest of this entry »
