Current Actions

• Stand Up for Maryland, Stop Catastrophic Cuts!

  The Maryland General Assembly is deciding now.

  A special legislative session began Monday, May 14th. Maryland has wonderful schools, high quality public services, and is a great place to live. Unfortunately, a lack of resolve in Annapolis could undermine all of this. The expected budget and revenues deal will not protect programs that keep our state strong. Failure to invest will be catastrophic for Maryland.

  Currently, Maryland faces a $1 billion projected budget shortfall. The budget deal that will be voted on in the special session would raise less than $250 million--only 1/4 of the needed revenues. The rest would be made up through cuts, shifting costs to counties, and other measures. We must demand that our elected officials act responsibly to address the impending fiscal crisis without risking catastrophic cuts to services and programs.

  To avoid catastrophic cuts, legislators must raise sufficient revenues. Please use this action alert to find the Governor's phone number and email address--and those for your senator and delegate(s) by typing in your zip code. Emails are helpful, but phone calls are much more effective.
  
  Ask to leave a quick message. Say that you're a voter, and mention your town or city. Discuss any or all of the points made above. If you choose, you may say you're willing to pay a bit more in taxes to prevent disastrous cuts which threaten our quality of life, and you believe that the very wealthy should pay their fair share to help keep Maryland strong. Ask your friends and contacts to join you taking this action to protect Maryland's high quality programs and services.

  Share this action alert link on Facebook, Twitter, in email, etc.:
  http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/1987/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=7671
  

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• Let's Get Single Payer Health Care in MA

  Call, or email, your State Senator now; your contact might be the one that places single payer health care on track in Massachusetts!
  
  Senator Jamie Eldridge is introducing a single payer amendment and Senator Michael Rush is introducing an amendment to ban mandatory overtime for nurses to the current Senate health care cost control bill S.2260: An Act improving the quality of health care and reducing costs through increased transparency, efficiency and innovation.
  
  Time is of the essence: the Senate bill is scheduled for Tuesday, May 15! Please call and/or email your senator immediately!

  Contact your State Senator at 617-722-1455 and ask that he or she support Senator Rush's amendment to ban Mandatory Overtime and Senator Jamie Eldridge's single payer amendment.



  Sample script: 


  My name is _______________ and I am calling to urge Senator _______________ to support 2 amendments to the Senate health care cost control bill S.2260: An Act improving the quality of health care and reducing costs through increased transparency, efficiency and innovation. Senator Jamie Eldridge's single payer amendment and Senator Rush's amendment to ban the dangerous practice of Mandatory Overtime in hospitals.
  
  We need both of these amendments. Single payer healthcare would create a Medicare-like health plan that would improve outcomes while containing costs. Requiring nurses to work beyond their scheduled shifts is not only dangerous for patients and nurses, but costly for hospitals and taxpayers. I hope we can count on your support for both of these important amendments. Thank you.

  Enter your zip code below, and our Advocacy Alert will locate your State Senator. Please call and email asking them to support the single payer amendment.
  
  For information on the current Senate bill, visit: http://www.malegislature.gov/Bills/187/Senate/S02260

  To read the text of the amendment visit PDA Community
  

  Share this action alert link on Facebook, Twtiter, in email, etc:
  http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/1987/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=7670

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• Save our Climate

  We're asking House members to cosponsor the Save Our Climate Act, H.R. 3242, and asking Senators to sponsor companion legislation. We're also asking the Administration to stand with the young people fighting for their future in the iMatter lawsuit, Alec L v. Jackson.
  
  The Save Our Climate Act would levy a carbon tax on fossil fuels in order to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, spur development of alternative energy, protect consumers from rising energy costs, mitigate climate change, and reduce our deficit. The Carbon Tax Center estimates that over 10 years, the Save our Climate Act would raise more than $2.6 trillion in revenue and reduce carbon emissions by 25 percent. Over several decades, the legislation will reduce the United States' carbon emissions to 80 percent below the country's emissions levels in 1990, which is the level scientists say must be achieved to stabilize our climate.
  
  Bill sponsor, Congressman Pete Stark said, "We have a moral obligation to act to prevent catastrophic climate change and preserve our planet for future generations." He added, "The Save Our Climate Act is a first step toward meeting that obligation and creating a sensible tax code that incentivizes innovation, reduces the deficit, and protects families from rising energy costs."  
  
  Our Children's Trust explains, "We stand on the brink of human-induced climate catastrophe … it is the duty of the government to protect the resources that are essential for our collective survival and prosperity…. The government has a legal obligation to preserve trust resources and to manage them for the benefit of everyone, not just for the benefit of the wealthy and politically-connected corporations."

  Time is short. Please act now to protect our planet from the impending climate catastrophe.

• Support Women - Support the Equal Rights Amendment

  

  PDA demands ratification of the ERA. The struggle for equality advanced dramatically when Representative Tammy Baldwin (WI) introduced legislation HJ Res 47 in the House to remove the deadline and let additional states vote to ratify the ERA on March 8, 2011, and Senator Ben Cardin (MD) introduced SJ Res 39 in the Senate for the same purpose on March 22, 2012.

  Carolyn Cook of United for Equality, LLC (U4E) proposed this new ERA strategy in 2009 after witnessing six states’ introduce ERA bills that ended in defeat. She hoped to engage bi-partisan congressional support for acquiring the final three states needed to reach the 38 states requirement for ratification. She has led coalition lobby efforts--recently alongside PDA national staffers Andrea Miller and Mike Hersh; and Stephen Spitz, Co-State Coordinator for PDA Virginia. Ms. Cook also joined IOT leader Randy Shannon and Andrea Miller for a recent Economic and Social Justice IOT call to discuss the ERA with PDA members. PDA is stepping up efforts in Congress and in the states to help United 4 Equality ratify the ERA by 2015.
  
  We demand equal rights. We need the ERA. On April 28, 2012 American women (and men who respect them) will take to the streets at marches and rallies all across the US. In support and recognition of this inspiring national day of action, PDA and our coalition partners are calling upon members of Congress to vote to facilitate ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment through the "three state strategy." Currently, federal and state laws do not and cannot fully protect equal rights for women and girls--and in some cases men and boys--under the law. This is because discrimination on account of sex is not barred by the Constitution. Antonin Scalia, Betty Ford, Patricia Ireland, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter have all asserted that the ERA is necessary for constitutional protection of equal rights for all.
  
  Contact your Senators and Congressperson. Start by typing in your zip code below. Our advocacy tool will determine whether or not they've signed on as cosponsors of HJ Res 47 or SJ Res 39, and  generate an appropriate email to either thank them or urge them to take action. Please note their phone numbers, and whether or not they are cosponsors. If not, please call their offices and speak with the staffer for judiciary issues. If he or she is unavailable, ask to leave a voice mail. Introduce yourself as a constituent, use your own words, and stress that action re: the ERA means a lot to you and other voters you know. Emphasize that the ERA is neither partisan nor issue-driven. It is about fundamental human rights.Read it to them: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."

  A brief history of the ERA. American heroine, Dr. Alice Paul, introduced the ERA in 1923 at the 75th anniversary celebration of the 1848 Woman's Rights Convention. The ERA was introduced in Congress for 49 years, and was repeatedly endorsed by both major parties. The Republican Party platform endorsed the ERA every four years from 1940 to 1980. President Dwight Eisenhower asked a joint session of Congress to pass the Equal Rights Amendment in 1958. Congress passed the ERA in 1972, with an arbitrary 7-year deadline, and sent it to the states for ratification. The deadline was later extended to 1982. By then 35 states had ratified ERA--just three short of the 38 needed for ratification. A new constitutional amendment with no deadline has been introduced for the past 30 years, but has never had even a committee hearing. Even so, state-level action to ratify the ERA continues. For example, the Virginia Senate voted to ratify in 2011 and 2012.

  There are no excuses for inequality. Congress imposed and then extended the deadline, and the deadline is not within the text of the ERA, therefore nothing prevents Congress from lifting the deadline. There is no Constitutional basis for rescission (withdrawing ratification by any state), nor is there any basis to deny ratification of 203 years for ratification which suggested that state actions to ratify the ERA would be "sufficiently contemporaneous." Both the Senate and House have Joint Resolutions promoting the "three-state strategy," which would pass by simple majority vote in each. It doesn't matter if they're Republican, Democrat or Independent. They should vote for equality under the law. It is not a partisan issue.

  Take action now! | For more information, please see United for Equality.

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• Support the CPC Budget for All

  Tell your Representative we need the "Budget for All!"
  
  Failed federal leadership caused and deepened the Great Recession, perilous inequality, and other economic crises and reversals. The Ryan Plan would double-down on these failed policies, and risk double-dip recession. The President's proposals are a step in the right direction, but don't do enough. We need the "Budget for All," strong leadership and wise policies to get America moving again.

  Please jot down the phone numbers, and call--if you can--then email.
  You can use the talking points from the suggested letter on your call.
  Calls count more than email, although both are important. Thank you!
  

  Tell your Representative and Senators that the "Budget for All" would:
  
  • End emergency war funding beginning in FY '14, reduce base discretionary defense spending.
  • Bring our troops home and realign national security strategy, saving $1.1 trillion over 10 years.
  • Invest $2.9 trillion in jobs, manufacturing, alternative energy, entrepreneurs and small business.
  • Let Bush-era tax cuts expire for the highest incomes in '12, enact a high net-worth surcharge.
  • Treat capital gains and qualified dividends as ordinary income.
  • Limit regressive itemized deductions for high earners.
  • End corporate welfare, establish accountability to discourage--not subsidize--harmful activity.
  • Reduce deficits $6.8 trillion, cut spending $749 billion, reduce debt to 62.3% of GDP by '22.
  • Much more! (See the "Budget for All" for more details and rationale.)

  Tell your Representative and Senators to vote for the "Budget for All!"
  
  Please join us! Tell your Representative and your Senators that we need the "Budget for All." Tell them to vote for and actively support the "Budget for All."

  Then, please share this action alert with all your friends and contacts. |  Take action now!

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• Act Now to Stop War vs. Iran!

  

  If there's one thing we don't need
  right now, it's war against Iran.

  
  Tell your Representative to cosponsor H.R. 4173, the "Prevent Iran from Acquiring Nuclear Weapons and Stop War Through Diplomacy Act" which would "direct the President of the United States to appoint a high-level United States representative or special envoy for Iran for the purpose of ensuring that the United States pursues all diplomatic avenues to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, to avoid a war with Iran, and for other purposes."

  So far, our board members Representatives Barbara Lee, John Conyers, Dennis Kucinich, and Lynn Woolsey, along with Representatives Keith Ellison, Maxine Waters, Pete Stark, Bob Filner, Sheila Jackson Lee, and (Republican) Walter Jones have sponsored H.R. 4173. We need many more now!

  Please contact your representative! If he or she is a cosponsor, thank them, and urge them to ask their colleagues to cosponsor as well. If your congressperson is not yet a cosponsor, use PDA's advocacy tool to urge that he or she contact the office of Congresswoman Barbara Lee to sign on immediately. Take action here!

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• Healthcare Not Warfare

  

  Act Now! Tell Your Congressperson You Want:
  Healthcare NOT Warfare, More Jobs, Less Debt.
  

  This is budget season. Tell your Representative we need Healthcare NOT Warfare. We don't need privatization or austerity. Medicare and Social Security must not be privatized, “voucher-ized” or weakened. Medicare should be improved, expanded, and extended to all for life. PDA continues to help lead the struggle for peace--the end to wars and occupations, and for single payer--Medicare for All--at the state and national level.

  Write and call to tell your Representative to support the full Healthcare NOT Warfare platform for prosperity, which includes HR 1200 and HR 676 advancing single payer, as well as HR 780 providing for a responsible end to the war in Afghanistan and bringing our war dollars home.

  Please use this action alert to contact your member of Congress. We've looked up their records, so you don't have to--our system will know if you need to demand action or thank your Representative for his or her position on each bill. Enter your Zip Code, and the appropriate letter will come up. Feel free to use that letter as-is, modify it, or write your own. Also, please note the phone number for your Representative and call. Please focus on these specific bills:

  HR 676: Rep. John Conyers' Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act

  HR 780: Rep. Barbara Lee's Responsible End to the War in Afghanistan Act

  HR 1200: Rep. Jim McDermott's American Health Security Act

  We have five (5) separate letters prepared to thank members of Congress for supporting one, two or all three bills, and to urge them to sign on to any they've yet to support. All you have to do is type in your Zip Code. The system knows which letter to use. Then, please share this action alert with all your contacts. Ask them to take action here.

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• Saving the Vote in Virginia

  You helped protect democracy in Virginia. Because of you, anti-voting law SB63 has been knocked out of the Senate! But it's cousin SB1 is still alive and threatening to make Virginia less democratic. SB 1 requires that Virginians show extra and unnecessary forms of identification at the polls. It makes it much harder for Seniors and low-income Virginians to have their votes counted.

  Tell Governor McDonnell to instruct Republicans to stop attacking democracy in Virginia: SB1 turns legitimate votes into a "provisional ballot" if a voter doesn't have the right form of identification when they get to the polls. Seniors, immigrant voters, and low-income Virginians are the least likely groups to meet the new stringent ID requirements, and if they don't, they'll have to make a trip to the voter registrar after the election is over to prove they are who they say they are.

  Government shouldn't be in the business of preventing democracy. They say they're trying to stop voter fraud, but voter fraud isn't a real problem in Virginia. Our lawmakers should be spending time and energy on expanding democracy for all Virginians.

  Tell the Governor: Oppose SB1 and any voting prevention bills that your Republican legislators have proposed.
  

  If SB1 and the other anti-voter bills being considered in the House of Delegates pass, fewer and fewer Virginians will have access to their democratic rights. Fewer and fewer people will make all the decisions for all the rest of us. Tell the Governor that democracy is always for everybody.

  Thanks for all your work to grow democracy in Virginia!

• Tell Your State Senator - Vote No on SB 1

  

  Voter ID Required to Vote (SB 1- Martin): Under current Virginia law, a voter without ID at the polls may sign an “Affirmation of Identity” affidavit and vote by regular ballot.  SB 1 eliminates the “Affirmation of Identity” option and requires voters without ID to cast provisional ballots; in 2006 nearly 50% of the provisional ballots were not counted.  This bill was amended to also expand the list of acceptable forms of ID. 
  

  Voter ID bills are purported to prevent voter impersonation fraud, of which Virginia has no history.  PDA opposes voter ID laws because they are onerous and unnecessary legislation that disproportionately impact low-income, elderly, and minority individuals who are less likely to possess the documents required by these bills.

• Vote No on H.R. 1380 - It's a Can of Worms
  

  Newer hydraulic-fracturing techniques for natural gas (“gas”) drilling and production result in substantial air, water, and noise pollution and are largely unregulated. (See “Pickens Plan” Would Drive More Fracking and Possibly More Global Warming).

   

  PDA calls on Congress to regulate “hydro fracking” under the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Air Act.

   

  A new, peer-reviewed study, “Methane and the greenhouse-gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations” by Prof. Robert Howarth (Cornell University), suggests that emissions of methane (a powerful greenhouse gas) during frack gas drilling, production, and distribution may be substantial enough to overwhelm the climate advantage of gas over coal. Thus, in addition to the need for regulation of the drinking-water and air emissions from fracking, PDA calls on Congress to require capture of fugitive methane.

   

  The proposed “NAT GAS” Act, or Pickens Plan, (HR 1380) would subsidize conversion of heavy-duty, long-haul, and fleet vehicles to gas from gasoline and diesel. But transportation is not the best use of natural gas as a transition fuel. We need natural gas to replace coal in high-efficiency, low-carbon electricity generation, which can reduce the climate impacts of electricity generation by roughly half.

   

  Tell your member of Congress to:

  1. Oppose the Pickens NAT GAS bill, HR 1380,  
  2. Support H.R. 1084, the “FRAC Act,” to close the exemption of fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act, 
  3. Support H.R. 1204, the “BREATHE Act,” to close the exemption of hydro fracking from the Clean Air Act, and 4) Enact laws to require capture of fugitive methane so it does not further destabilize our climate. 
  4. Enact laws to require capture of fugitive methane so it does not further destabilize our climate.
• Corporations Are Not People

  
  
  Support the Amendment that Makes This Perfectly Clear

  We all intuitively understand that corporations, limited liability companies, and any corporate entities are not people. They are not born, do not have children, do not risk their lives for others, and do not die. People do that.

  But almost since our Constitution was written, court decisions have whittled away at the distinction between corporations and people, granting them the same rights, privileges, and responsibilities.

  The January 21, 2010, Citizens United vs. the Federal Elections Commission decision went further than any other, giving corporations First Amendment protections of free speech—and in doing so protects corporations' rights to political spending.
   
  To undo this decision, we need to go back to the beginning and clarify what is and isn't a person: "The words people, person, or citizen as used in this Constitution do not include corporations ... ."
   
  We need to bring a 28th amendment to the Constitution, as defined in H. J. Res. 88: "We the people who ordain and establish this Constitution intend the rights protected by this Constitution to be the rights of natural persons."
   
  Tell your representative to cosponsor H. J. Res. 88.
   
  Please feel free to edit the message below, which will be sent to your representative.
  

• Platform for Prosperity - Healthcare not Warfare Bills are Back

  

  
  While many economists agree that reducing the deficit at this time is not the way to create jobs and ensure long-term prosperity, Washington insiders are gung-ho for austerity measures that could cripple any chances for a middle-class recovery.

  Of course, beltway denizens could choose to do what’s right for us working folk, but they won't if we don’t demand it. Taming spiraling medical costs and ending US involvement in Afghanistan would go a long way toward closing shortfalls in the budget while providing Americans with the help they need to get out from under crushing illness and debt.

   

  Ask your representative to cosponsor the “Responsible End to the War in Afghanistan Act" (H.R. 780) and the “Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act " (HR 676).

   

  We encourage use to use your own words to change the title and text below. If your representative has already signed onto the bills, please alter the text below to thank him or her for their support.

• Protect the Social Safety Net

  People have paid for Social Security and Medicare throughout their working lives. Chronically ill children and seniors living in nursing homes depend on Medicaid. Tell the Super Committee find the cuts elsewhere.

• Support the Democracy Restoration Act

   Thank current supporters of the Democracy Restoration Act. Request Congressional Members to support

• Negotiate Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit

   Lower the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare recipients and save American taxpayers $1 trillion