Hold Halliburton Accountable

What will it take for major corporations like Halliburton to stop treating our safety like it was just a speed bump along their way to obscene profits from fracking?

It will take levying major fines on the corporation when it makes reckless, unbelievable mistakes — like losing, for nearly a month, a radioactive rod used in the process of fracking wells in Texas, after it apparently just fell off a truck.¹

That's right. Fell. Off. A. Truck.

Tell the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Hold Halliburton accountable for its carelessness with radioactive material. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Last week, Halliburton finally found the device — a 7-inch rod and "category three" source of radiation used in prospecting well locations for fracking — along a highway seven miles from the fracking site, after losing it on September 11.

This is of course far from Halliburton's biggest mishap. The company knowingly² used faulty cement to seal the infamous Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, which likely contributed to the worst oil spill in American history — for which Halliburton has yet to pay any fines or spill costs, claiming its contract with BP indemnified it of any responsibility.

Not only is Halliburton's reckless behavior a danger to us — but the company is actively hostile to the rules needed to protect us. Halliburton and Dick Cheney worked in 2005 to exempt fracking from regulation under the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act, now known as the "Halliburton Loophole."

The only way to change Halliburton's hostility toward public safety and environmental protection is to make it extremely costly for the company to ignore.

Please click below to automatically sign the petition:
http://act.credoaction.com/r/?r=6973571&p=halliburton_radioactive&id=48741-2593817-iOkzwex&t=9

Thank you for holding Halliburton accountable.

Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

1. "Halliburton's Radioactive Rod Found Alongside Texas Highway After Going Missing," Huffington Post, 10/8/12
2. "Panel Says Firms Knew of Cement Flaws Before Spill," New York Times, 10/28/10

National Popular Vote Bill

Only 9 swing states matter in this year's presidential election, and your state may not be one of them.  Let’s put all 50 stars back onto the flag. A voter in Idaho should matter as much as a voter in a swing state such as New Hampshire, Nevada, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Florida.

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states. It makes everyone’s vote equally important. The National Popular Vote bill ensures that every voter, in every state, will matter in every presidential election.

Your action NOW can make the difference. Please take a moment to e-mail your legislators and officials to tell them to support the National Popular Vote bill. For your convenience, we provide a suggested letter (which you can edit).

Presidential campaigns ignore Idaho because electoral votes are currently awarded to the candidate who gets the most popular votes within each separate state. Candidates ignore states (like Idaho) where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. 

In 1960, presidential campaigns paid attention to 35 states. In 2008, Obama campaigned in only 14 states after being nominated. In 2012, the presidential campaigns have been concentrating on just 9 swing states for the past five months.

The states have the constitutional authority to change the method of awarding electoral votes and thereby establish a national popular vote for President.

The National Popular Vote bill has already been enacted into law by Vermont, Washington state, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, California, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and Hawaii. In addition, the bill has passed at least one legislative house in an additional 12 states.

If you believe that a vote cast in your should count as much as a vote cast in a swing state, please take a moment to e-mail your legislators and officials to tell them to support the National Popular Vote bill when it comes up in the State legislature.

The National Popular Vote bill is endorsed by the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, FairVote, Sierra Club, Brennan Center for Justice, NAACP, National Black Caucus of State Legislators, ACLU, the National Latino Congreso, Asian American Action Fund, DEMOS, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, Public Citizen, U.S. PIRG, and Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund.

The bill has been endorsed by newspapers such as the Hartford Courant, New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Boston Globe, Sacramento Bee, Daily Astorian, Kent County Times, The Columbian, Connecticut Post, Westport News, Fairfield Citizen News, Baxter Bulletin, Fayetteville Observer, and many more.

As the Sarasota Florida Herald Tribune said: "The most compelling and practical alternative is promoted by a bipartisan group called National Popular Vote. The NPV proposal calls for legislatures to pass bills committing their state's electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes nationwide; the bill would take effect only when enacted by states that together have enough electoral votes to elect a president."

So far, the National Popular Vote bill has been enacted by states possessing 132 electoral votes. This is about half of the 270 electoral votes needed to bring it into effect.

The current system has elected a second-place candidate in 4 of the nation’s 56 presidential elections. The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The National Popular Vote bill fixes the  shortcomings of the current system of electing the President while preserving the Electoral College, preserving state control of elections, and leaving our Constitution unchanged.

Your action NOW can make the difference. Please take a moment to e-mail your legislators and officials to tell them to support the National Popular Vote bill.

Learn more at www.NationalPopularVote.com.

Click here to "Like" NPV on Facebook:  

Thank you.

-Demand Progress and Idaho National Popular Vote

Voter Registration Day

Now is the time to make a final push to register as many voters as possible! We’re down to the last weeks of voter registration in many states.

 

The AAUW Action Fund It’s My Vote: I Will Be Heard campaign has joined groups like the Bus Federation Civic Fund and the League of Women Voters to mobilize around National Voter Registration Day on Tuesday, September 25. AAUW is going one step further and dedicating this whole week to voter registration. Here’s what you can do to celebrate AAUW’s National Voter Registration Week:

• Have a “3x3” conversation with millennial women (ages 18-31) in your life: Our best chance to turn out women voters on November 6 is to do it “woman to woman,” through personal contacts. That’s why we’re all making the commitment to have “3x3”s: three conversations with three millennial women in our lives to ask them three questions:
• Are you registered to vote?
• Will you pledge to vote this year?
• Will you call three millennial women in your life and ask them the same thing?

The millennial women you call could be anyone you know between the ages of 18 and 31: friends, family, friends of the family, neighbors, whomever! We’ve even drafted a sample script if you want something to guide the conversation. We can all make time for three phone calls, and that can make difference!

• Bedazzle your Facebook with our new cover photos: Update your Facebook photo to sport one of our new It’s My Vote Facebook cover photos. These photos will remind your friends and fans to register – and to vote – every time they visit your page. Make sure you link back to theTumblr page in your Facebook photo description.
• Tweet up a storm: To start, make sure you are following all three AAUW Public Policy and Government Relations accounts: It’s My Vote, AAUW Action Fund, and AAUW Policy. We’ll be posting all sorts of content throughout the week, so retweet your favorites! Also, make sure to include the #itsmyvote hashtag in every tweet and include the #925NVRD hashtag if your tweet is specifically about the September 25th National Voter Registration Day.
• Find a voter registration event near you: AAUW branches and our coalition partners are hosting voter registration drives all over the place, from college campuses to libraries to local grocery stores It’s not too late to get involved – find an event near you today!
• Show your AAUW spirit with the latest It’s My Vote fashions: We’ve got It’s My Vote pins, stickers, and temporary tattoos – wear one, two, or all three this week to show your AAUW spirit! Email VoterEd@aauw.org to request more of these materials if you’re running out.

We’re in the home stretch of voter registration, so let’s finish strong – then we’ll ride the wave of our efforts into the next phase of contacting these new voters and getting them to the polls on Election Day. We will vote, and we will be heard!

Lisa Maatz

AAUW Director of Public Policy and Government Relations

 

Ban Conversion Therapy

The damaging and dangerous practice called "conversion therapy" might soon be at an end in California — the most populous state in the U.S. — if Governor Jerry Brown signs a bill that the state Legislature has already passed.

On Saturday, Brown signed dozens of bills into law¹ — but he hasn't yet signed the ban on conversion therapy for minors. We only have until September 30 to ensure this bill becomes law.

So-called conversion therapy is based upon the disproven theory that homosexuality is a form of mental illness and that through therapy, sexual orientation can be changed. Thousands of gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth have been subjected to the humiliating measures of this practice over the past 100 years, including electric shocks and nausea-inducing medication paired with homosexual imagery.² In many other cases, youth have been forced to undergo shame-filled therapy sessions with counselors and groups of their peers.

Tell California Gov. Jerry Brown: Sign the bill to ban conversion therapy of minors and affirm the finding of the legislature that being gay or lesbian is not a disease or disorder. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

California has been a leader in legislation protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination. Now the state has the opportunity to put an end to a draconian and homophobic practice that has no place in modern medicine, and set a precedent that should be followed nationwide.

All three of the major mental health organizations in the United States — the American Counseling Association,³ American Psychological Association,⁴ American Psychiatric Association⁵ — have denounced this practice. Hundreds of other medical organizations in the United States and abroad have done the same. It doesn't work, and more often than not it causes serious psychological distress.

Passing the bill costs California nothing, and will set a national precedent that will open the door to other state government bans of the practice. But more important, it will protect children and teens from the harmful and guilt-filled process that tears apart families and causes long-lasting damage that sometimes ends in suicide.⁶

Tell California's Gov. Jerry Brown to be a national leader in the fight to protect gay and lesbian youth and sign the ban on conversion therapy for minors. Click below to automatically sign the petition.
http://act.credoaction.com/r/?r=6966705&p=conversion_therapy&id=47531-2593817-iudDfHx&t=9

Thank you for standing up to protect young gays and lesbians from abuse.

Jordan Krueger, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

1. "Archives for September 2012." Office of Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr, accessed 09-23-2012.
2. Dr. Gregory Herek, "Attempts To Change Sexual Orientation." Sexual Orientation: Science, Education, and Policy, accessed 09-20-2012.
3. Joy S. Whitman, Harriet L. Glosoff, Michael M. Kocet and Vilia Tarvydas, "Ethical issues related to conversion or reparative therapy." American Counseling Association, 05-22-06.
4. "Resolution on Appropriate Affirmative Responses to Sexual Orientation Distress and Change Efforts." American Psychological Association.
5. "Therapies Focused on Attempts to Change Sexual Orientation (Reparative or Conversion Therapies)." American Psychiatric Association, 05-00.
6. Kelvin Lynch, "APA: Gay conversion therapy can cause depression and suicide attempts." Examiner, 08-05-09.