Author: Choicematters

Cutting Risk by Disclosing Political Donations

Cutting Risk by Disclosing Political Donations

In politics, it often pays to be ahead of the curve. That holds true for corporate governance too, even more so when politics enter the equation.

That is why a small number of the nation’s largest corporations have voluntarily agreed to report their share of trade association outlays that go to fund political activities. Together, these firms encompass a virtual who’s who in the microcosm of corporate America. In doing so, this corporate vanguard has yielded to pressure from shareholder activist groups that targeted them as prime candidates for greater accountability and transparency.

But this trend also reflects the altered political climate in Washington — a climate personified by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the liberal chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and an advocate of what he calls “shareholder democracy.”

“Some companies get it, some don’t,” said Bruce Freed, co-director of the Washington-based Center for Political Accountability, a nonprofit and non-partisan shareholder advocacy group that is playing a key behind-the-scenes role in orchestrating the recent run of voluntary disclosures. “The ones that don’t get it,” he added, “are headed for a (shareholder) proxy vote.”

BREAKING NEWS: Santorum Couldn’t Stop Glick

Guess who was in Albany on Tuesday?
Anti-choice extremist, former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum!!!

You remember Rick –  he believes that the Supreme Court decisions allowing married and single women the right to birth control were wrong and should be overturned.

Why Albany? Santorum thinks New York is vulnerable. He was here joining with others to egg on anti-choice legislators to oppose bills protecting a woman’s right to choose.

But that didn’t stop Assemblywoman Deborah Glick who introduced a bill, A 6221, that would guarantee New York women the full constitutional protection of Roe v. Wade – a protection sorely missing from New York law.

We desperately need to protect New York women from the horrific attacks being waged against us in states across the country and in Washington D.C. The passage of A 6221 is the way to do that!

New York’s Assembly is leading the way.

Call your Assembly member and tell her/him that you support A 6221.

Then let’s make sure the Senate follows!

Tell Gov. Cuomo, “Words are NOT enough!”

Governor Cuomo is not abiding by his own campaign promises of standing up for equality for women!

In January 2013, Governor Cuomo announced a sweeping ten-point Women’s Equality Agenda (WEA) for New York that included protections for abortion rights, pay equity, against housing and pregnancy discrimination, and more.

The WEA never made it to the floor of the Senate for a vote because a group of five Democrats, led by Senator Jeff Klein, split with their party after it won a majority in the 2012 elections. These five rogue Democrats empowered the Republicans by creating a power-sharing deal that basically allowed the GOP to decide what bills should come to the floor for a vote. Republican leader Dean Skelos made it perfectly clear that the 10-point WEA would never to come to the floor for a vote.

According to RH Reality Check, 7/30/2014, “Gov. Cuomo gave his blessing to the deal that put two men in charge of the Senate, rather than the pro-choice [duly elected majority] leader of his own party, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the first Black woman to lead a New York State legislative caucus.” But we don’t know that for sure!

What we do know is that in the 2014 New York gubernatorial election, Cuomo unveiled a brand-new Women’s Equality Party complete with a commercial starring himself and his family. The commercial made clear that the passage of the WEA was of utmost importance to Governor Cuomo. Women deserved nothing less. But then the Republicans won control of the Senate in the 2014 elections, and Klein and his buddies, despite pre-election promises, joined forces with the Republicans, again, and Andrea Stewart-Cousins became the New York State Senate Minority Leader.

Fast forward to today. It is budget time in Albany. Sheldon Silver is no longer Assembly Speaker. The Governor and everyone else in Albany has declared it a time for transparency.

Governor Cuomo has the opportunity to make his championing of Women’s Equality mean something. After all, that is what he ran on: equality for women.

Instead, Cuomo invited into the behind-closed-doors budget negotiations Senate Leader Republican Dean Skelos, Assembly Speaker Democrat Carl Heastie and JEFF KLEIN. WHERE IS SENATE MINORITY LEADER ANDREA STEWART-COUSINS? WHY WASN’T SHE INVITED IN?

Cuomo invited Jeff Klein who represents 5 Senators in but left Senate Minority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins who represents 25 Senators outside. That is not equality and this is disrespectful. Klein has no business in the room. He does not represent any recognized political party, while Andrea Stewart-Cousins represents the Democratic Caucus.

Sign this petition and let Governor Cuomo know what you think: Let Her In!
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/let-her-in.fb52?source=s.icn.fb&r_by=5603782

Remember, it’s Women’s History Month! Let’s make some Good Herstory!

Veterans’ advocates hit the Hill

Veterans’ advocates hit the Hill

A group advocating the rights of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are on the Hill this week to press lawmakers on issues ranging from disability care to high rates of unemployment.

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the largest organization for veterans of the wars, will host a series of events as a part of their Storm the Hill campaign this week, culminating in Thursday’s release of their legislative agenda for 2010.

Top priorities include improving the claims processing system for disabled veterans, addressing the suicide epidemic among service members and improving the Veterans Affairs Department’s health care services for women.

This is the fifth annual trip for the group, which was founded in 2004. Starting Monday, the veterans will form teams named for the military alphabet — Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc. — and will meet with more than 100 lawmakers to discuss their issues.

The veterans were originally scheduled to meet with Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War, who died Monday.

Congress Set to Cut Your Abortion Rights This Thursday

This Thursday, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the US House of Representatives will vote to ban 20-week abortion nationally.

The symbolism of the day can’t be missed.

The 114th Congress’ anti-choice politicians are using the Roe v. Wade anniversary to send a clear message: They are gunning for women and our reproductive rights.

In the Senate, the new Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, made the passage of this ban a campaign promise when running for re-election last fall!

Just hours after being sworn in, the right-wing controlled Congress introduced this 20-week abortion ban.

If the 20-week abortion ban becomes law, it will effect women in every state in the country – jeopardize women’s health everywhere. The bill is unconstitutional and would institute criminal penalties, including up to five years in prison for health care providers for delivering safe medical care to women who need it. [1]

The bill, HR 36, deceptively named the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act”, is based on lies and junk science claims that:
*fetuses are viable and can feel pain at 20 weeks (both false),
*abortion at that stage is too risky for women (it is still safer than childbirth), and
*the public supports a ban (in truth, the overwhelming majority wants pre-viability abortions, including at and after 20 weeks, to remain safe and legal).[2]

With women’s rights supporters now in the minority in Congress, we need to fight harder than ever against attacks on our reproductive rights. We need to reach out to Congress and to President Obama. If the bill passes Congress, we will need President Obama to stand up for all women and veto this bill.

CLICK HERE TO TAKE ACTION
(This will take you to the National Partnership for Women and Families to facilitate contacting Congress.)

We Must Speak Out!
[1] National Partnership for Women and Families
[2] National Organization for Women, Terry O’Neill

Westchester vs. Every Other County in the Country

There is no question that the November 4th Elections were horrific for women nationally and in states across the country including New York. Extremists with their anti-woman agendas took control of both houses of Congress, state governments, and, here in New York, the State Senate. Politicians who have pledged to enact sweeping abortion bans, take away women’s right to birth control coverage, and do away with equal pay legislation have taken control.

But here in Westchester, things were different. Why? Because of WCLA – PAC, WCLA – Choice Matters, our bright yellow ProChoice Voting Guide – and YOU.Where an estimated four billion dollars was spent nationally on campaigns, we managed to take our meager funds and change elections. We madetens of thousands of phone calls to our database, got over 54,000 copies of our yellow ProChoice Voting Guide into mailboxes reaching over 85,000 pro-choice voters, and emailed (more than some of you liked). And we got out the vote! As a result, 95% of our candidates were elected, including Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney and State Senator George Latimer who were both under targeted assault. Plus we elected a terrific Supreme Court Justice, James Hubert, to his first term representing the 9th District which is made up of 5 counties. In addition, our strong advocacy for the re-election of our phenomenal pro-choice Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, resulted in a very strong win for him here in Westchester, the county that decided this year’s elections. We decisively defeated Westchester’s own anti-choice extremist County Executive in favor of our pro-choice Governor. Our pro-choice actions dramatically impacted Election Day outcomes here in New York State.

2014 stands in sharp contrast to 2013 when due to insufficient fundswe were unable to mail out our Voting Guide, and pro-choice candidates lost in astonishing numbers. In 2013, they lost by small margins, and this year they won by those same margins. These races – decided by just a few percentage points – are where our ProChoice Voting Guide makes the difference between winning and losing.

Women vote at higher rates than their male peers, and that gap increases with age. And women are our base. Our database demographic is not comprised of your typical internet and social media users. Reaching this target population, the one that can change elections, requires more traditional avenues of communication – the telephone, and yes, snail mail – the U.S. Postal Service. And the postage rate just keeps going up.

But our work is not limited to election time. We work all year long – advocating, organizing, reviewing proposed legislation, writing op-eds, making sure we have input in policies and programs – while every week we are calling new voters to identify whether they are pro-choice and can be added to our database. We are on the frontlines and the cutting edge. For example, immediately following the Hobby Lobby decision, Choice Matters approached Attorney General Schneiderman’s office with a simple straight-forward idea: Create legislation that requires employers to disclose whether or not they provide contraceptive coverage, and if they change the coverage, require that the company disclose the change. This, the Reproductive Rights Disclosure Act, was our brainchild and made New York the first state in the nation to take action in response to the U. S. Supreme Court’s horrendous decision. It was so impressive that President Obama enacted a version of our bill.

Unfortunately, this all costs money. Your support today is essential to our ability to function. Without your financial contribution, there will be no ProChoice Voting Guide or people building our database, or staff to hold New York policies in check. We scare some candidates and elected officials, and reward others, because we hold them accountable for their actions.

Choice Matters has been standing strong since 1972! That’s 42+ years! Choice Matters has interviewed hundreds of thousands of female voters, identified those who are pro-choice, and added them to our database. It’s our amazing staff, database and mailed ProChoice Voting Guide that make us victorious. We’ve always understood this.  We don’t need massive SUPER PAC money, but we do need your contributions. As we’ve clearly demonstrated, we spend our funds wisely.  The more you invest in us, the greater our impact will be on New York State and federal politics. It starts with a donation from you. Make no mistake about it, we are now in the fight of our lives as extremists in Congress, followed by those in our state governments, including in Albany, are committed to rolling back women’s rights. For example, a Personhood Bill – giving a fertilized egg the same legal rights as a human being, and thereby banning abortion and most birth control – has already passed the House of Representatives. After this election, they have enough votes to bring the bill to the Senate floor! Limitations imposed by Congress will affect New York.

Can you chip in to help us fight to defend the right to choose against this new anti-choice majority? Your generous contribution of $25, $100, $250 or more will help Choice Matters’ ProChoice campaign continue to identify and educate pro-choice voters across the county and state, and change elections. We kept Congressman Maloney in office despite horrendous attacks, and with your support we will continue to do more.

Please say, “Yes, I’ll make a donation to help defend abortion rights against this new anti-choice majority.”  Consider making a contribution in someone’s name, as a holiday gift!

Choice Matters is a mighty pro-choice organization with a proven strategy. When you, our donors, provide us with the funding needed, we are able to do extraordinary things. Now more than ever, we need your support. Your contribution, whatever you can afford – large or small – will make a difference.  Every dollar truly counts.

Please mail your contribution today or you may securely contribute on line at www.choicematters.org.

Supporting Choice Matters is the most valuable action an advocate for Choice can take.

Do They Really Think They Can Fool Women?

Candidates’ OTC Birth Control Plans are a Raw Deal

This election season, many candidates, particularly Republicans, from Virginia to Colorado, are trying to run from their war on women voting records by coming out in support of over-the-counter (OTC) birth control. Make no mistake, they are targeting middle and low income women – people who would not vote for them anyway!

Their proposal might seem like they suddenly understand the need for increasing contraceptive access, but don’t be fooled!

These candidates just want women to pay for the full cost of their birth control, with no help from insurance coverage.These candidates are helping insurance companies, not women. (Note, they are not suggesting doing away with insurance coverage for Viagra.)

These candidates aren’t supporting women’s reproductive health — they’re attacking it.

According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), out-of-pocket costs prevent many women from consistently accessing birth control, and the most effective – and most expensive – methods, such as the intrauterine device (IUD), always require a visit to a health care provider. (So what about a doctor’s visit is OTC?)

Just to make this point even clearer, not one birth control manufacturer has sought FDA approval for OTC birth control — so these so-called improvements would result in middle and low income earning women being without contraceptive access because they can’t afford it!

This OTC proposal comes from the same candidates who have pushed to restrict access to comprehensive reproductive health care. These same politicians have placed repealing the Affordable Care Act which would cover contraception as preventative care and cutting back on public clinic funding at the top of their agendas. These candidates want: NO preventative care coverage for annual exams, Pap smears, or contraception. 

OTC contraception has a place in efforts to expand reproductive choice. People need access to services like emergency contraception on demand. But putting birth control in front of the counter is only the first step to ensuring comprehensive access. Women need policy makers who support a full spectrum of reproductive health decisions. Instead of doing away with insurance coverage for contraceptives, we need to expand it to cover Plan B, a very expensive OTC emergency contraceptive.

Women, don’t be fooled. Don’t let these candidates stick women with the bill!

by Olivia Cappello

 

Breaking: Choice Matters & AG Schneiderman First to Respond

New York is the first state in the nation to take action in response to the U. S. Supreme Court’s divisive Hobby Lobby decision.

Today, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced that he together with State Senate Democratic Conference Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assemblywoman Shelley Mayer would propose legislation in Albany that would help to shield New York women from the effect of the Court’s decision.

The legislation to be proposed is the brainchild of WCLA – Choice Matters.  We are incredibly proud that our idea is now the Reproductive Rights Disclosure Act.

Immediately following the June 30th Hobby Lobby decision, Choice Matters approached Attorney General Schneiderman’s office with a simple straight-forward idea: Create legislation that requires employers to disclose whether or not they provide contraceptive coverage, and if they change the coverage, require that the company disclose the change.

We cannot change the Hobby Lobby decision right now, but we can make sure New York women know what they are getting into when seeking employment, or if their employer changes its policy.

Click here and read more about the Reproductive Rights Disclosure Act.

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Hope Rises from the Rubble

On May 23rd, Elliot Rodger murdered six people and wounded 13 more, at random, in Isla Vista, near the University of California Santa Barbara. The supposed reason: Women. In a 135-plus page, misogynist, autobiographical manifesto and multiple YouTube videos, he blamed all women and their disdain and sexual rejection of him for his rampage. His ideas are terrifying.

Yes, Elliot Rodger’s manifesto is extreme and thereby easy to dismiss as the rantings of a madman. But …“reading his manifesto, you can make out, through the distortions of his raging mind, the outlines of mainstream American cultural values”….”Rodger was crazier and more violent than most people, but his beliefs are on a continuum with misogynistic, class-based ideas that are held by many.” Sasha Weiss, The New Yorker

Amazingly, though, Rodger’s horrific actions and madman rantings have given rise to something wonderful and cause for hope: #YesAllWomen.  Women have again found their voices.

For years many of us have struggled to find ways to get a broader spectrum of women involved in our struggle, the women’s rights struggle. This is not about humanism, but about feminism.  Well, Elliot Rodger’s distorted views and violent random acts succeeded. He galvanized us in a way that has been long in coming.

“In response [to Rodger], the hashtag #YesAllWomen began to race across Twitter TWTR +1.48%. By [yesterday] afternoon, the tag had been used more than 1.8 million times according to tracking service Topsy. It linked stories of sexual violence, sexual harassment, and sexual fear across the networked world, as women reacted viscerally to both the horror of the crime and its commonality in their experience – at least in its motivation. The hashtag was a harsh and unsubtle pushback against the pat and simplistic “not all men” rejoinder so often flung about when feminism threatens male sensitivities. And frankly, #YesAllWomen  was a vital moment in the still-growing power of loosely organized and decentralized feminist networks that are changing the landscape of social culture using platforms like Twitter and Facebook.” Tom Watson, Forbes

Please join the movement #YesAllWomen. Put it in your search engine and see what comes up.

There is another great feminist power field to tell you about: Know Your IX, founded by female college students who have been rape victims and were denied the protection guaranteed by Title IX.  Visit  KnowYourIX.org and/or like them on Facebook. These women are shaking it up.

I want to yell, “THANK YOU” from the rooftops to all these women.

Read the following articles and share.
The Power of #YesAllWomen, by Sasha Weiss, The New Yorker

Why ‘#YesAllWomen’ Matters — And Why It’s Not Hacktivism, by Tom Watson, Forbes

#YesAllWomen reveals the constant barrage of sexism that women face, by Jessica Valenti, The Guardian

Elliot Rodger was a misogynist – but is that all he was?, by Hadley Freeman, The Guardian

GOP’s top candidates fail women

The Republicans’ top two candidates, for governor and attorney general, are anti-choice candidates who have shown true disdain for the well-being of New York women. No longer is the standard bearer for the Republican Party pro-choice governor Nelson Rockefeller, who signed New York’s abortion-rights bill into law. Instead, today’s New York Republican Party has sought out extreme anti-choice politicians to run.

Their gubernatorial candidate, Rob Astorino, has made his anti-choice position a cornerstone of his campaign. He promises to do to the state what he has done to Westchester County. That means vetoing legislation guaranteeing women safe access to reproductive health care, eliminating funding for health centers, gutting funding for sex education and more. If elected governor, he would be able to do unimaginable budgetary and legal damage to women.

Astorino and John Cahill, the Republican candidate for New York attorney general, have taken aim at the Women’s Equality Act. This act is a 10-point plan that ensures women are treated fairly in the workplace, helps protect survivors of domestic violence and preserves access to reproductive health care. Calling the reproductive health component of the act “ghastly” and “hideous,” Astorino has declared he will “guarantee” never to sign it into law. Cahill, the candidate whose legal mind the public is supposed to trust, dismisses it as unnecessary.

The truth is that New York’s current laws do not give women the full constitutionally recognized protection of Roe v. Wade and do not incorporate the medical advances that have been made in reproductive health over the past 44 years. New York women deserve reproductive legislation that does both, and the vast majority of New Yorkers want the reproductive component of the Women’s Equality Act enacted into law. But Astorino and Cahill don’t, and so they work to mislead the public about the Women’s Equality Act and the status of New York’s abortion rights.

In recent years, anti-abortion forces have chipped away at that constitutionally protected right state by state, driving women’s clinics out of operation and making it impossible for many women to obtain reproductive health services of all types – including contraception and abortion. In New York, 53 percent of our counties have no abortion clinics, and every year anti-choice bills, like the defunding of Planned Parenthood, must be beaten back in Albany.

It’s easy to say the denial of women’s health services couldn’t happen in New York. But unless the rights guaranteed by Roe are codified in state law, New York women will remain vulnerable to attacks from anti-abortion extremists – and Cahill has a history of undermining the right to choose.

Despite not holding public office, Cahill has an anti-choice record. He was Gov. George Pataki’s chief of staff and stood with his administration as it promoted policies that denied New York women access to reproductive health services and empowered abortion opponents. His administration also vetoed expansion of access to emergency contraception and denied reproductive health care to thousands of women by contracting with health maintenance organizations that refused to provide these essential services. This practice was not disclosed to women before they enrolled – imposing an undue burden by forcing them to find out-of-network providers after the fact.

Astorino and Cahill pose a sharp contrast to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Cuomo has always stood strong as an advocate of women’s reproductive rights in theory and in reality, as seen in all 10 points of the Women’s Equality Act. Schneiderman’s record of advocating for women is legendary, both as a state senator and now as attorney general. As a senator, he led the effort to pass the Clinic Anti-Violence Act to protect abortion clinic workers, doctors and patients from violence and harassment – a bill that Astorino would have vetoed. It was signed into law in 1999, and was the first piece of pro-choice legislation enacted in New York in more than a decade.

Voters need to know that these four candidates are diametrically opposed when it comes to women’s rights. The fact that Astorino and Cahill do not care about what is in the best interest of 51 percent of the state population means they do not deserve to hold office in New York.

The writer is president of Westchester Coalition for Legal Abortion – Choice Matters.