Bad Deeds for 5-1-2011

Texas Schools Shortchanged in Proposed State Budget – The Texas Senate is heading toward a showdown on the state’s budget for 2012-2013. This budget proposal would impose harsh cuts on public education, health care, and other essential state services such as nursing-home care for the elderly. Under the Senate committee’s version of the budget, as much as $6 billion in the state’s Rainy Day Fund would be left untapped even as state budget cuts totaling more than $5 billion eliminate critical programs like full-day pre-kindergarten and force layoffs of thousands and thousands of teachers and other school personnel. The bill doesn’t even begin to address the structural shortfall of $5 billion a year in state aid to school districts that the legislature created with an ill-conceived tax swap in 2006. Under this budget, the state would fail to fund the costs of enrollment growth in our public schools for the first time in more than 60 years. And this already grossly inadequate Senate version would be a cinch to get worse in negotiations with the House leadership on a final budget bill.

Please send an e-mail letter urging your senator (a) to vote NO on bringing this budget plan up for debate and (b) to hold out for a better deal. A letter is ready for you to send immediately from the Texas AFT Web site.

Please also call on Monday, May 2, and leave the same message for your senator—vote NO on bringing up the Senate committee substitute for HB 1, and hold out for a better budget–with the staffer who takes your call or on the senator’s voicemail. Be sure to mention you live in the senator’s district. The Texas AFT toll-free line to the state capitol switchboard is 1-888-836-8368. Just give the operator your senator’s name and ask to be connected.

Republican Officials Send Racist E-Mails – Orange County Republican Central Committee member Marilyn Davenport sent an email out to colleagues and friends that showed the President of the United State photoshopped onto the body of a chimp.

In Virginia Beach, Republican Party Chair Dave Bartholomew forwarded an extremely racist joke comparing African-Americans to dogs while telling a story about trying to apply for welfare benefits. The email was forwarded from the same account he used for official party business.

Texas House Votes To Suffocate You and Your Family – Although the process was already stacked in favor of polluters, the Texas House voted to strip away the last remaining fig leaf of protection for Texans fighting to keep their air and water clean. Rep. Warren Chisum (R-Pampa) authored an amendment to the TCEQ sunset bill (HB 2694) that would shift the burden of proof to the individual challenging the issuance of a permit for polluting facilities like coal-fired power plants.

This means that should a company want to build a coal or chemical plant near your home and you and your neighbors become concerned about a plant pumping harmful, cancer-causing chemicals into the air, you will be required to prove the extent of the problem rather than the permit applicant being required to prove the permit meets state and federal health and safety law as is required for every other permit.

Shifting that requirement will make it incredibly difficult and expensive for Texans to challenge encroachments by big polluters on the health and safety of their families. It will mean any individual hoping to protect their family will need to hire a lawyer and a number of experts to develop very expensive modeling.

Rep. Chisum and those who voted with him voted to open Texans’ doors and choke off the voice of every Texan as polluters pump chemicals into their air and water. They have voted to suffocate the rights of individuals in Texas to have a process that follows the rule of law.

Contact your State Senator today and tell them vote NO to the Chisum Amendment.

Louisiana Republican: Sterilize Poor Women but Pay the Wealthy to Have More Children – Louisiana state Rep. John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, said Tuesday he is studying a plan to pay poor women $1,000 to have their Fallopian tubes tied.

It also could include tax incentives for college-educated, higher-income people to have more children, he said.

Republican Bill Gives Blank Check for Endless War – If you like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan then you’ll love the new legislation from Senator John McCain (S. 551) and Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Buck McKeon (H.R. 968). Their Proposal: Congress should give the President and the Secretary of Defense a blank check to wage war against anyone he or she declares “associated” with al-Qaeda or the Taliban – anytime, anywhere, anyhow.

Tell your Representative to oppose Chairman McKeon’s blank check for endless war.

U.S. Supreme Court Takes Away Your Right to Join Class-Action Lawsuits – In a new ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed Big Business to deprive you of your best weapon to fight back if you are cheated or harmed by corporate wrongdoing. The court’s 5-4 decision Wednesday in AT&T v. Concepcion permits corporations to use consumer and employment contracts to take away your right to join class-action lawsuits.

You’ve likely entered into “agreements” with many corporations — maybe without even realizing it. When you bought a cell phone or rented a car. When you opened a bank account, got a credit card or refinanced your mortgage. When you saw a doctor or arranged medical care for a loved one. When you got hired at your job.
You didn’t get to negotiate the terms of these contracts. If you needed that phone or that job, you signed on the dotted line. And unless you’re a contracts attorney, you probably couldn’t make sense of all the legalese.

More and more, these contracts include what are known as binding mandatory arbitration clauses. The word “arbitration” may sound like a good thing: “Hey, let’s sit down and talk this out — nobody wants to go through a lawsuit.”

But in actuality, forced arbitration does not provide the protections of traditional trials, including the ability to gather information from corporate defendants. And the largest arbitration firms are heavily biased in favor of Big Business and against consumers.

The Supreme Court has ruled not only that corporations can force people into arbitration, but also that they can use arbitration clauses to deny those they harm the right join together to seek justice in a court of law.

Regards,

Jim