Dear Friends:

Look what our allies at Center for Community Change discovered!  There is $1.1 BILLION more than the Governor announced just last week!  The Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) made great suggestions on how to apply these funds to services that have been cut to the bone in earlier budgets and not replaced in this one:

What do we want: We are urging the Governor and the Legislature to expand the recovery to everyone in California.

There is money in the system right now that can give every Californian enough to thrive. We urge you to:

•        Use the LAO’s accurate accounting measures of the revenue available. Under the LAO estimates, there would be $1.1 billion more of discretionary resources available for the 2015-16 state budget than the Governor’s May Revision.
• Adjust Proposition 98 by:
• Moving Child Care funding under Prop 98. Prior to 2011 all child care funding (except Stage 1 CalWORKs child care) was funded out of Prop 98.  During the recession, child care funding was moved to the general fund.  Today Prop 98 has healthier revenues and can sustain child care funding once again. 
• Counting additional local property tax revenues towards 98, which could reduce the general fund obligation by $400 million dollars.   
• Reflect additional local revenue schools have received from the dissolution of redevelopment agencies since 2012-13, which could make $125 million available for general fund spending.
•     Eliminate “aggressive prison spending” in Governor’s budget, and redirect 73.3 million dollars of savings towards cost-effective population reduction strategies. 
  

• Repaying loans from state transportation funds using dollars required under Proposition 2 to go toward debt payments, rather than paying back these loans with General Fund dollars outside of Proposition 2, as the Governor proposes. (State policymakers borrowed from these transportation funds in prior years to help close General Fund shortfalls.) This could free up $186 million. 

•        Eliminating unaccountable tax breaks and loopholes.

•        Passing revenue that forces corporations to pay what they owe in property taxes bringing in 9-10 billion dollars of revenue by 2019.  
  

With these changes, there is enough revenue right now in the May Revise to invest in the programs that Californians depend on:

• Support children and families in poverty by ending the Maximum Family Grant Rule in the CalWORKs program;
• Increasing working families’ access to affordable child care;
• Boosting cash assistance for low-income seniors and people with disabilities on SSI;
• Moving homeless families into permanent housing;
• Expanding health care coverage to undocumented immigrants (SB 4); and
• Restoring In-Home Supportive Services hours to keep people with disabilities living with dignity in their homes

We can begin to tear down the wall of poverty, and build back a California where everyone has enough to thrive. 

In your Faithful Fridays messages to your elected officials in your home districts, please point to these revenue sources.  We can no longer stand by as those who have given up the most to our state's fiscal requirements continue to live in desperation due to these cuts.

If you are unsure how to Take Action, please to to our web page:
http://www.churchimpact.org/take-action.html

Put in your correct information, and the site will take you to your legislator's home pages. 

With all this "found money" we can begin the work of restoring the safety net for those whom our society has too often abandoned.  For every man, woman, and child still in want, this work we do is essential.

Thank you!

Remarks by Amy Everitt, State Director of NARAL Pro-Choice California and NARAL Pro-Choice California Foundation, at AB 775 press conference on May 20, 2015:

•    This bill is about empowering women to make their own reproductive health decisions and access affordable care. That means respecting the dignity of women and recognizing that only she really  knows what is best for her and her family.  

•    It doesn’t mean lying to women to stop them from considering all of their options. It does NOT  mean making decisions for them.

•    I find it extremely difficult to understand how people,  who claim to care about women, find it so threatening to inform them about accessing affordable health care. Making sure women have the care they need to lead happy and healthy lives shouldn’t be controversial. We can all agree that women deserve to have all the information in front of them when they make some of the most important decisions they will ever face.

•    Our investigation of California’s crisis pregnancy centers revealed disturbing patterns of lying to and manipulating women. Instead of honest conversation about all their options, our investigators faced a barrage of lies and medical misinformation designed to discourage them from accessing abortion and contraception. Which is ironic, because these same centers claim that women need to know all of their options.

•    Your press packet includes four pamphlets we collected from CA CPCs in the course of our investigation. They speak for themselves.

AB 775 ensures that when women are given this kind of false and manipulative information at unlicensed facilities, they know they are not hearing it from a licensed medical professional.

•    Opponents of this bill have twisted it beyond recognition. It doesn’t tell anyone what to say in their counseling. It doesn’t require anyone to refer patients to another abortion provider. It doesn’t encourage anyone to choose one option over another.

It simply ensures that any woman walking into a licensed clinic in California walks out knowing that money shouldn’t be a barrier to accessing the the reproductive health care that she feels is right for her.

•    AB 775 has support from a strong coalition of more than 30 organizations with proven records of respecting women’s decisions and supporting them in accessing health care. The California State Assembly should pass this bill Friday to bolster California’s role as a leader in protecting and expanding reproductive freedom.


Remarks by the Rev Dr Rick Schlosser, Executive Director of California Church IMPACT, at AB 775 press conference on May 20, 2015:
 
The California Council of Churches IMPACT is a Sacramento-based public policy office representing 21 different denominations with more than 5,000 congregations with over 1.5 million members from the mainstream Protestant and Orthodox Christian communities throughout California.

IMPACT is a leading voice in representing the theological diversity in the mainstream and progressive communities of faith.  In spite of what one may read in the media or hear from the strident voices of the religious right, there are far MORE people of faith in California who support women’s reproductive rights than oppose them.

California Church IMPACT and a very large percentage of our constituency support AB 775 wholeheartedly.

We support religious liberty and the right of individuals to practice their faith however they believe to be best.  However, the arguments put forth by the religious right against this legislation are false and need to be put in perspective.

It is in the best interests of our state for clients of all facilities to know clearly whether or not said facility is licensed and whether or not licensed medical personnel are present.

In spite of claims by the opposition, nothing in this Reproductive FACT Act prevents so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” from doing what they choose to do in accordance with their own narrow religious beliefs.  It simply prevents them from misrepresenting themselves as having any sanction and moral authority they do not have.  I find the fact that they do not respect women enough to provide women with all their options offensive and morally reprehensible.  No facility with any integrity would try to manipulate women into a decision by withholding valuable medical, psychological, and spiritual options and perspectives as these CPCs so often do.

We in the faith community who support women’s reproductive rights do not see how inaccurate, even dangerous, medical information advances religious liberty.

Let me be clear: this bill does not prohibit anyone’s religious freedom.  It protects religious freedom.  No faith tradition with any integrity would disrespect women by withholding any of their options.

Therefore, we urge your support of The Reproductive FACT Act, AB 775.

Dear Friends:

Yesterday May14, Governor Jerry Brown offered his “May Revise” our “wonk speak” term for the annual update or revision of our state’s proposed budget for 2016.

To read in depth about what is in and what is out of our budget, you can go to the California Budget Project web site:
http://calbudgetcenter.org/resources/first-look-the-governors-2015-16-may-revision/

The good news is that revenues are up. The state received $6.7 billion – yes BILLION – more than the governor had projected in January.  However, there is precious little good news for those of us serving ever-more-desperate people living on the thin edge.

The largest funding recipient will be our K-14 programs, schools and community colleges.  Funding has been restored to pay back the deficiencies incurred in lean years.   In addition, the University of California will be funded sufficiently well that tuition will be frozen for the next two years for instate residents.  California State Universities, however, will receive far less support despite their controls on student fees over the lean years.

The working poor will benefit some from the creation, put into the budget, of a state Earned Income Tax Credit similar to the federal program.  EITC gives direct cash return to low-income working people to compensate for paltry wages.  The state EITC will be available to 825,000 families whose breadwinners have worked for wages upon which they have paid taxes.  It is not available to those who have not.

In Home Support Services (IHSS) recipients – and therefore their providers – will get the 7 percent cut in hours restored. This will help invalids, the disabled, elders, etc. needing in home care to have more hours that in turn provides 7 percent more income for providers who are low wage working people and family members devoted to a loved one’s care.

The Governor has agreed to fund a small program to aid those immigrants granted lawful status by President Barak Obama.  The Governor’s Director of Finance indicated that this population would then also be covered by health insurance, usually Medi-Cal.

Cap-and-trade revenues will be partly directed into affordable housing although how and where that occurs is not yet clear.

This is all the good news. 

Most of the surplus will go to cover the new Proposition 2 “rainy day fund” requirements along with debt retirement. This means that once again, those whose programs were cut will not see restoration.  Those on disability, the time-limited welfare program, and other

Here is the major deficiency of this 2015-16 budget as a moral guidepost:

*there is no money to restore CalWORKs cash grants that pay for rent, utilities, non-food items, clothing, etc. for families trying to escape poverty. Currently the cash grant is approximately enough for a one bedroom apartment in a few parts of the state and well below that level in many areas such as Los Angeles and San Francisco.  This grant is not without burden since those without very young children are expected to work for that sum, meaning they work for less than minimum wage and that work will not qualify for EITC assistance.

*there is no increase in child care support funding. Those who are working on CalWORKs or employed in low-wage jobs will still have to find child care for their pre-school age children without adequate availability or assistance from the state.

*there is no increase in funding for services aiding those with developmental disabilities. 

*there will be no Cost of Living Allowance increase for people on disability.

With the exception of the hour restoration of IHSS, nothing at all has been done to restore pre-recession levels of funding for social programs in California.  We had no problem cutting these to ‘save money’ in the budget. We apparently have no appetite for sharing the current increases with those whose programs were decimated.

Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber) who is the Budget Committee’s top Republican said he was very pleased with the lack of spending and fiscal discipline of this year’s budget.  “We don’t want a spending spree,” he said.

The Governor echoed the sentiment.  Fiscal restraint is the main goal.  “We have to learn from history and not keep repeating the same mistakes,” he declared Thursday.

Those in need, therefore, remain far below the goal of fiscal balance with no thought given to the sacrifices they already made.

WHY FAITHFUL FRIDAYS ARE SO IMPORTANT

California has the highest level of poverty in the United States.  Programs that kept people from dire want were cut repeatedly by the Legislature and the governors who saw one compelling reason to use those programs as cash resources – the poor very often have no presence in Sacramento, no voice in the Capitol.

We now have just under one month before the budget has to be finished in both houses.  That is four Fridays for you to make justice a central point of your advocacy. 

Get a group assembled, 3-5 people, and visit district offices especially on Fridays when your Assembly Member and Senator will be at home.   If you cannot visit, call or FAX your officials – but let your voice be heard!

Make clear that while fiscal responsibility is a moral good, failing to provide excellent stewardship over social programs is not.

We used the already meager resources designed to alleviate the impacts of poverty.  We took those funds away to balance the budget for the past several years. 

Now it is time to restore, refund, refresh those programs and put an essential hand under the elbow of every man, woman, and child in want.  

Congregations are doing more than their part – but we do not have the resources to offer the social justice that comes by providing continuing essentials.

Let your legislators know via visits, calls, FAX that this state, to be a true leader, must direct far more of its bounty to restoring programs for those in need.  The poor made their sacrifices for the state. Now the state must provide restitution for those in need.  That’s the moral foundation of a truly great state and society.

Don’t know your elected officials?  Go to: http://www.churchimpact.org/take-action.html

Log in your address and ZIP code, and you will be taken directly to your legislators’ home pages.   For your first time, you will get a verification code to enter assuring that no one other than you will be signing you up to get alerts from IMPACT.

Then use your links to let your voice be heard on Faithful Fridays - or any other days of the week!

Thank you.

Dear Friends:
 
Many activists in the faith community have heard of and been moved by "Moral Mondays" in North Carolina.

Faith and lay people from all over that state have been converging on the state Capitol to protest what they see as regressive, unjust, and mean-hearted legislation.  A year ago they rallied 80-100,000 people, and they got so much notice the legislature is seeking to ban (unconstitutionally) such rallies again.  Every Monday thousands are now standing for justice on budget, voting rights, tax issues - anything that affects the growing inequality of North Carolina and its people.

What you may not realize is that measured in meaningful ways, California has the highest poverty rate of any state in the nation.  (Sacramento Bee, November 29, 2013).

To address this appalling issue, the California Council of Churches is urging you and your friends, fellow congregants and parishioners, clergy, and allies to begin local actions we are calling Faithful Fridays.

It's not at all easy to come to Sacramento week after week.  It is simply too far for many to travel.

But on Fridays your legislators are at the district offices, and, as constituents, that is a perfect place to gather to stand for justice.  Gather together however you can, and bear witness every Friday before those who hold the power over many fragile lives that they do no further harm.

This year's budget is a key target.  We have abundance after many years of want.  Proposition 30 has brought money to the state that the Governor has delegated almost entirely to repaying the debt and filling the 'rainy day' fund.  Almost none of it will go to those whose programs were decimated to stave off collapse.  We cut programs for the poorest of the poor to save the General Fund, but now, in abundance, we still make them the human sacrifice.

Yes we must pay our debts.  Yes we need reserves.  But people who have been thrown aside by the private sector or that the private forces cannot help have no other resources but ours, manifestations of justice for the Common Good.

Several compassionate Senators have offered a 1:1:1 compromise for surplus last year - one third to debt, one third to savings, one third to returning support to those in need.  The new Speaker of the Assembly, Toni Atkins said the same, not specifying a formula but noting we must protect our families and children from want.  These views have some bi-partisan support as many from both parties support specific programs even while disagreeing on others.

It is within this space our voices are powerful.  We can build bridges while advocating for the poor.  We believe there are just and honorable solutions, and we urge you to organize to speak to the adoption of budget justice that balances fiscal responsibility with compassion for those hanging by a very slender economic thread.

To start a Faithful Fridays action, begin where you are - "where two or more are gathered" - and make your presence known.  Visit and talk or visit and hold signs, sing, recite, whatever you are moved to do, however you choose to do it.  If you are unable to be present, call when others you know may be there.

Let your local papers and television and radio know what you are doing!  Encourage ministerial councils and interfaith groups to join in.  The more voices, the more authority over these issues you can have.  Please take the time to go to offices of friendly legislators, too!  They need your witness and support just as much as the cranky ones need to rethink their positions!

The budget must be passed by June 15, so this is urgent.  We ask that you do this quickly, and that any clergy so moved become a local presence with high visibility as soon as you can.
 
To find the nearest office for your officials, please go to:
http://www.churchimpact.org/take-action.html.  If your zip and/or address are entered, it will take you to a list of legislators where you can click the link and find their main page with addresses and phone numbers.

As the weeks and months roll on, we will be offering suggestions on issues for Faithful Fridays.

Please stay in touch with us.  We are a small staff as you know, and we can't be with you much in person, but we can share your stories with others and offer strategies that have succeeded for your inspiration.

Write to us a faithfulfridays@calchurches.org and tell us what, and how, you are doing.

This is something we can do.  Please join us in making Faithful Fridays a way to have your voices heard and heeded on behalf of too many who have no voice at all.

Thank you!

Book Launch:  My Trip to the Land of Gandhi: A Mexican-American’s Journey to the Legacy of Nonviolent Resistance

Watch Book Video Trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXEAJL9v-X8

SAN DIEGO – As we approach the end of the public school year and college graduations that leave students with thousands of dollars in student loan debt, it is important to remember where we stand as a country on the human right to education.  On Sunday, May 17, 2015, the 61st anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the book My Trip to the Land of Gandhi: A Mexican-American’s Journey to the Legacy of Nonviolent Resistance will be launched as an eBook on www.smashwords.com and as a print-on-demand book on www.thebookpatch.com.  The book is a memoir about a Mexican mother’s son growing up in poverty in America and his pursuit of the human right to education through the legacy of Gandhian nonviolence.  In 1959, after the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dr. King wrote an important article in Ebony magazine about his journey to India to study the work and life of Gandhi and the Indian freedom struggle and how to apply those lessons back home to redeem America’s democracy.  The article was entitled “My Trip to the Land of Gandhi.”  In the article, King states, “I left India more convinced than ever before that nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.”

This book is about this young son’s metaphoric “Trip to the Land of Gandhi” and how this journey helped him confront the great issues of today with this great legacy of nonviolence resistance.  The first item on the agenda was the $90,000 in student loan debt that was handed to him along with his law school degree.  Erik Olson Fernández’s journey and his strategic insights are a call to action to finish the “unfinished business” of the 1960s with a nonviolent struggle for the human right to quality free public education in the Americas.

Sadly, more than 60 years after Brown v. Board, public school students are still plagued by stark racial and economic segregation and misguided education reform efforts led by some of the wealthiest people on the planet.  In California, for example, it’s once proud, mostly white, public school system was the envy of the globe in the 1950s and 60s but it is now one of the worst in the country and criminally underfunded.  In 2004, PBS made a film documentary on California’s public schools appropriately entitled “From First to Worst.” (http://learningmatters.tv/blog/documentaries/watch-first-to-worst/651/)  Education Week’s Quality Counts 2014 report ranked California 49 out of 51 in its state rankings on per-pupil spending – below all the Southern states, including Mississippi.  Black and Latino students today make up at least 59% of the student population in California.  According to a February 4, 2015 article from Capital & Main entitled “The California Chasm” by Manuel Pastor and Dan Braun, California […] is the home to more super rich than anywhere else in the country — and it also exhibits the highest poverty rate in the nation, when cost of living is taken into account.  Income disparities in the state of California are among the highest in the nation, outpacing such places as Georgia and Mississippi in terms of Gini coefficient, a standard measure of inequality.”  After much legislation, many public referendums, and high profile lawsuits, California’s students are still denied their state constitutional right to a quality, free public education.  The time has come to give life to lifeless laws with the great legacy of nonviolent resistance. 

All proceeds from the book will go to fight for the human right to education through Nuevo SNCC.  Visit www.nuevosncc.net for more details. 


CONTACT INFORMATION:
Erik Olson Fernández
(619) 309-7111 cell
contact@nuevosncc.net
http://nuevosncc.net/book.html    

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Erik Olson Fernández has many years of experience organizing for nonviolent social change as a Community Organizer and in the labor movement as an Organizer, Labor Representative, and Field Director with public education and health care unions.  Motivated by the experiences of growing up with a single mother from Mexico, he has a long commitment to economic and social justice through nonviolent resistance.  Like Gandhi, Erik has a law degree but has instead focused and devoted his life to organizing workers and community residents for justice.  He is currently working to create Nuevo SNCC, the modern equivalent of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a project that seeks to revive SNCC’s nonviolent legacy in the 1960s to challenge today’s human rights violations around the right to education.  Erik holds a Bachelor of Arts in Urban and Regional Planning from Miami University and a Juris Doctor from Northeastern University School of Law.  Erik is president of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity and a member of the California Council of Churches IMPACT Board of Directors.