Jan 27, 5:30PM-8PM, Perkins Center, 155 Talbot Ave, Dorchester, Forum on 3-Strikes Law
Jan 27, 7PM, JP Forum, 6 Eliot Street, 3-Strikes Law
ECONOMIC AND ….……FULL EQUALITY HEALTH AND PROTECTING SOCIAL JUSTICE…. AND CIVIL RIGHTS ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE CIVIL LIBERTIES
We are continuing our work on an amicus brief for the U.S. Supreme Court which is considering our recent federal health care legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Faculty and students at Boston University Law School have asked JALSA consideration and cooperation on an amicus brief to be submitted that would deal with some of the libertarian issues underlining the suit. “Implicit in many of the lower courts’ opinions invalidating the individual mandate, including the Eleventh Circuit’s, is a concern that the mandate threatens individual liberty. This sense that the mandate represents a serious imposition on personal freedom has driven much of the popular and judicial debate on the mandate’s constitutionality under the Commerce Clause, but the government has not addressed the argument.”
JALSA will argue that health care is a communal responsibility and that the federal government is not taking away personal liberty when it allows citizens to select from a choice of health care options.
Transgender Bill PASSED!!! THANK YOU EVERYONE
A great victory. Massachusetts now protects gender identity in employment and education.
We still need to work on public accommodation. Next round!
Update on CRIMINAL JUSTICE BILL
Criminal Justice Bill will wait until next session. Since different versions were passed by the House and Senate, bill will need to wait for January. JALSA is pleased that these versions have not been enacted into law. These are complex statutes with many provisions of concern.
These bills would result in three strikes sentences in MA mandating life without parole. H3811 is even harsher than the notorious California Three Strikes law, which permits parole after 25 years.
Significant changes to the Massachusetts wiretap statute, enhanced criminal liability in DNA collection, expansion of the habitual offender law, mandatory post-release supervision and new standards of whom shall be eligible for parole and when were maintained.
Areas of our conversations with legislators:
1) This Bill has been proposed in an extremely hurried way with no research on what these measures will cost.
2) Research has shown that 3 strikes bills do not reduce crime.
3) Texas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Arkansas, New Jersey, New York and Michigan have all taken a thoughtful look at costs and crime rates without locking up more people or enacting tougher new laws; all have saved money and reduced crime by providing more substance abuse treatment both in the community and in prison. MA spends only 2.4% of its budget on programming and by implementing effective parole practices that help parolees become tax paying, lawful citizens.
Thank you for signing on to the letter to Secretary Napolitano regarding Alabama’s anti-immigrant law, HB 56. Over 350 organizations signed on demanding an end to unjust immigration enforcement policies and programs in Alabama. Yesterday, we mailed the letter to Secretary Napolitano and we plan to request a meeting with her to further press for our asks. Again, we thank you for signing on and we hope you will continue to distribute the letter widely.
To download a final copy of the letter, click here.
To read the press release about the letter, click here.
Thank you for your support.
Tong Lee
Rights Working Group
202-296-2300 x 123
tlee@rightsworkinggroup.org
www.rightsworkinggroup.org
Andrew Fischer, as President of JALSA, writes in the Brookline Tab, deploring the arguments used in the debate over the Pledge of Allegiance in the Brookline Schools.
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NPR reporting on the Sukkah at Occupy Boston |
JALSA and several other Jewish groups from across the city had constructed a Sukkah at Occupy Boston. One theme of the holiday– as we live in these booths open to the wind and rain — specifically reminds us of the fragility of our material possessions.
We invite folks to visit Occupy Boston and bring our Jewish values to help shape this new movement. Stop by our Sukkah –which we will maintain for the immediate future for conversations, lunch, and discussion.
“Is this the fast I have chosen? ……
Cry out, spare not, raise your voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and Jacob’s house their sins. Isaiah 57:14-58:14
See Facebook for up-to-date schedule of events at the Sukkah.
Location: Dewey Square.
Area near the Ventilation Building.
Call the JALSA office for more details: 617-227-3000.
Here is the link to Contagion: Not Just a Movie, a powerful look at how the common sense policy of paid sick days can prevent a real-life contagion. Five worker activists share their stories of having to go to work sick because they can’t afford to stay home or aren’t allowed to take off.
Here in Massachusetts, almost 1 million workers do not have a single paid sick day.
We all have a stake in paid sick days. KNOW THE FACTS:
· More than 44 million workers do not have paid sick days – almost 1 million of whom are Massachusetts workers.
· Workers earning low-wages are the least likely to have paid sick days. Only 19 percent of low-wage workers have access to paid sick days.
· Many workers with a significant interaction with the public do not have paid sick days. This includes three in four food service workers, three in five personal health care workers and three in four child care workers.
· 1 in 6 workers have been fired or threatened with being fired for taking time off work to care for a personal or family illness.
Notwithstanding the outstanding vote to protect the affordable housing statute last fall (40 B), the proponents of that ballot initiative tried once again to attack the law with a new ballot initiative. We are delighted to report that the Office of the Attorney General has agreed that the new initiative is substantially the same as the one turned down by the voters this past year, and by law cannot be repeated on the ballot in less than three years.
