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For Immediate Release
July, 21 2020, 12:00am EDT
Tuesday July, 21 2020, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Stand Up America Urges Lawmakers To Pass Automatic Voter Registration in NYS
New York-Based Group Has Driven 8,000 Constituent Calls to Lawmakers Supporting AVR
WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON - Today, Stand Up America released the following statement in support of passing S8806 in the New York State Senate and A8280C in the New York State Assembly:
"If we want New York to be a progressive leader on issues like health care, climate action, and economic fairness, then we need every eligible voter to participate in our elections. Automatic voter registration will eliminate one of the biggest obstacles to participation--requiring voters to proactively register and keep their registration up to date--and will add over one million New Yorkers to the voter rolls.
"This pandemic has put a spotlight on the many barriers to voting in New York and around the country that it's long past time be torn down. The New York State Legislature has the opportunity to eliminate one of those barriers for over one million New Yorkers this week, and they shouldn't let it pass them by.
"We urge lawmakers in both chambers to swiftly pass this bill and implore Governor Cuomo to then immediately sign it into law."
Since 2019, Stand Up America has driven more than 8,000 constituents to call their lawmakers in the New York legislature pushing for automatic registration. The coordinated campaign includes pushing constituent emails and calls, lobbying efforts in Albany, and other grassroots actions across the state to push lawmakers to support this legislation.
These efforts are being coordinated in partnership with numerous national and local grassroots organizations as part of the Let NY Vote coalition, including AVR NOW, the Brennan Center, the Center for Popular Democracy, Common Cause New York, Demos, Indivisible, Make the Road, New York Communities for Change, Public Citizen, and numerous other groups.
Stand Up America is a progressive advocacy organization with over two million community members across the country. Focused on grassroots advocacy to strengthen our democracy and oppose Trump's corrupt agenda, Stand Up America has driven over 600,000 phone calls to Congress and mobilized tens of thousands of protestors across the country.
LATEST NEWS
Trump and GOP Wage War on Children's Food Aid to Fund Tax Cuts for the Rich
The Republican Party's proposed cuts to nutrition assistance for children, said one analyst, "would be part of legislation that would give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest people and businesses."
Mar 13, 2025
The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are waging a multi-front war on nutrition benefits for children, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture moving this week to end programs that provided over $1 billion in funding for schools and charity organizations to buy food from local farmers as GOP lawmakers simultaneously take aim at school meal programs as part of an effort to fund tax breaks for the wealthy.
Schools and farmers are "bracing for impact," as The Washington Postput it, after the USDA axed the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program and the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program as part of a purported effort to "return to long-term, fiscally responsible initiatives."
The Local Food for Schools Program, according to the USDA, "no longer effectuates agency priorities."
The decision to kill the programs could be disastrous for schools, childcare facilities, and other organizations that were expecting federal funding this year. Politicoobserved that "roughly $660 million that schools and childcare facilities were counting on to purchase food from nearby farms" has been terminated by the Trump administration.
"Trump and Elon Musk have declared that feeding children and supporting local farmers are no longer 'priorities,'" Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement, noting that her state was set to receive $12.2 million "to provide local healthy food to childcare programs and schools, and to create new procurement relationships with local farmers and small businesses."
"Instead of strengthening our food supply chain and supporting students and food banks, the Trump White House wants cuts, chaos, and cruelty."
Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio), vice ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, said that "the Trump administration is proving to be bad for farmers, bad for children, and bad for people in need."
Food insecurity rose for the second consecutive year in 2024, and roughly 14 million children in the U.S. are food insecure, according to the nonprofit Feeding America.
"Instead of strengthening our food supply chain and supporting students and food banks, the Trump White House wants cuts, chaos, and cruelty," said Brown. "These two programs were a win-win for farmers and communities, and it is incredibly short-sighted to abruptly end them."
Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, are pushing for deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid that "could make it harder for schools to operate meal programs and for families to obtain free or reduced-price school meals, Summer EBT, or benefits through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)."
That's according to an analysis published Wednesday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), which noted that "school meal programs and Summer EBT use SNAP and Medicaid data to automatically enroll children."
"If low-income families with children lose their SNAP and/or Medicaid benefits, they would have to complete a school meal application instead of being automatically enrolled," CBPP warned. "In addition to diminished access to meals during the school year, families who are unable to successfully navigate the application process would no longer be automatically enrolled in Summer EBT. Families with children who lose SNAP and/or Medicaid would also lose their adjunctive income eligibility for WIC."
Zoë Neuberger, a senior fellow at CBPP, said that "as families struggle to keep up with the rising cost of food, Republicans in Congress are looking at making it harder for millions of children in families with low incomes to get free meals at school."
"Worse yet, the proposed cuts would be part of legislation that would give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest people and businesses," said Neuberger. "Congress should instead focus on removing red tape for schools and families so parents can afford groceries and children can get the meals they need for healthy development."
The School Nutrition Association (SNA), a national nonprofit whose members help provide meals to schools across the U.S., is sounding the alarm about three specific proposals that Republicans are weighing as they craft their sprawling reconciliation package:
- Restricting the Community Eligibility Provision;
- Requiring income verification with every free and reduced-price school meal application; and
- Ending Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility
"These proposals would cause millions of children to lose access to free school meals at a time when working families are struggling with rising food costs," SNA president Shannon Gleave warned in a statement earlier this week. "Meanwhile, short-staffed school nutrition teams, striving to improve menus and expand scratch-cooking, would be saddled with time-consuming and costly paperwork created by new government inefficiencies."
'Keep Calling': Warnings of 'Head Fake' as Schumer Claims Dem Unity Against GOP Funding Bill
One observer warned that top Democrats are "trying to fool their own supporters" about their position on the Republican Party's government funding legislation.
Mar 13, 2025
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a floor speech Wednesday that Republicans don't have enough support from his caucus to advance their partisan six-month government funding legislation, which would inflict large cuts to non-military spending and bolster the Trump administration's assault on federal agencies.
But Schumer's claim of Democratic unity following tense private caucus meetings was soon called into question as some members suggested the minority party could still cut a deal with Republicans to invoke cloture on the legislation—a move that would pave the way for passage of the bill with a simple-majority vote.
"Everybody in the caucus wants an opportunity to vote for a clean 30-day [continuing resolution] that puts us on a pathway to regular, legit appropriations," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), referring to an alternative government funding bill offered by Democratic appropriators ahead of the looming Friday shutdown.
"It's not an unreasonable ask to say, if you want cloture, you'd better give us a vote," Whitehouse added.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) similarly indicated that Democrats could be willing to help Republicans invoke cloture—which requires 60 votes—in exchange for votes on Democratic amendments.
If cloture is invoked, the GOP would no longer need Democratic support to push the bill through the Senate.
"Democrats had nothing to do with this bill," Kaine told reporters following a closed-door caucus meeting on Wednesday. "And we want an opportunity to get an amendment vote or two. So that's what we are insisting on to vote for cloture."
"Any Senate Dem who thinks their left flank, or anyone else in their base who is determined to stop Trump, would accept this strategy is deeply deluded."
Such remarks from Democrats led Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo to describe Schumer's floor speech as "a head fake."
"This is the Senate D caucus trying to fool their own supporters," Marshall argued. "Sorry to say that but that's what's happening."
In a blog post, Marshall wrote that "this was a deal between Schumer and [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune to allow a brief performative episode to throw Democratic voters off the scent while the Democratic caucus allowed the bill to pass."
"The deal is this: Democrats agree to give up the 60-vote threshold in exchange for being allowed to offer amendments to the House bill. The 'amendment' or 'amendments' will likely be some version of Sen. [Patty] Murray's 30-day CR. It doesn't even matter what they are. But this is all for show," he explained. "Once you give up the 60-vote threshold, the whole thing is over."
Progressive strategist Robert Cruickshank wrote late Wednesday that "any Senate Dem who thinks their left flank, or anyone else in their base who is determined to stop Trump, would accept this strategy is deeply deluded."
"This isn't even about left or right or center," Cruickshank wrote. "The divide within the Democratic Party is 'fight' versus 'surrender.'"
The new comments from Schumer and members of his caucus came amid a pressure campaign from House Democrats, grassroots organizers, advocacy groups, and the nation's largest union of federal workers urging senators to oppose the Republican funding bill, even if it means risking a government shutdown at the end of the week.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which is engaged in legal fights against the Trump administration's large-scale attack on federal agencies,
wrote to senators on Wednesday that "a widespread government shutdown has been underway since January 20 and will continue to spread whether senators vote yes or no" on the Republican funding package.
"If H.R. 1968 becomes law—a measure that ignores the administration's brazen refusal to carry out duly enacted laws of Congress and further erodes Congress' power of the purse—AFGE knows that DOGE will dramatically expand its terminations of federal workers and double down on its campaign to make federal agencies fail because there will be nothing left to stop the administration for the balance of fiscal year 2025, if ever," the union wrote.
At least one Senate Democrat who was seen earlier Wednesday as a possible vote for the GOP, Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, vowed later in the day to oppose both cloture and the Republican bill itself, a sign that public outrage could be having an impact.
"Keep calling. Keep up the pressure," Democratic strategist Matt McDermott wrote in response to the Colorado senator's opposition.
Senate Democrats are waking up: Hickenlooper said this morning he was leaning towards backing the CR. But at a town hall tonight he publicly commits to voting No — including on cloture. Keep calling. Keep up the pressure.
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— Matt McDermott ( @mattmfm.bsky.social) March 12, 2025 at 10:18 PM
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who has been urging Democratic senators to oppose the Republican bill, wrote Wednesday night that "House Democrats have stayed in D.C. to pass a 30-day clean government funding extension."
"We are here to avert a shutdown and give Republicans the time they need to negotiate a bipartisan agreement," Ocasio-Cortez added. "I'm here in D.C. ready to vote on a clean CR, and so is everyone else. Let's do it."
'Billionaires Over Life on Earth': Trump EPA Guts Vast Array of Environmental Protections
"The Trump administration is trying to roll back decades of critical health and safety regulations that have saved millions of lives and are all that's standing between us and runaway climate change," said one campaigner.
Mar 12, 2025
While U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin boasted Wednesday of canceling billions of dollars worth of green grants, considering the rollback of dozens of regulations, and shutting down every environmental justice office nationwide, critics warned the moves will have dire consequences for people and the planet.
Zeldin—a former Republican congressman from New York with an abysmal 14% lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters—said in a statement that the EPA "will undertake 31 historic actions in the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history."
"We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S., and more," Zeldin said. "Alongside President [Donald] Trump, we are living up to our promises to unleash American energy, lower costs for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, and work hand-in-hand with our state partners to advance our shared mission."
In one of the biggest moves of the day, the EPA will reconsider its endangerment finding, which the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) described as "the landmark scientific finding that forms the core basis of federal climate action."
"Removing the endangerment finding even as climate chaos accelerates is like spraying gasoline on a burning house," said Jason Rylander, legal director of the CBD's Climate Law Institute. "We had 27 separate climate disasters costing over a billion dollars last year. Now more than ever the United States needs to step up efforts to cut pollution and protect people from climate change. But instead Trump wants to yank us backward, creating enormous risks for people, wildlife, and our economy."
Zeldin said the EPA is "eliminating all diversity, equity, and inclusion and environmental justice offices and positions immediately," a move that will result in the closure of 10 regional facilities. The EPA chief explained the move complies with Trump's executive order on "ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferences" and other presidential directives.
The agency also moved to cancel a $2 billion grant program to help communities suffering from pollution.
"This is a fuck you to anyone who wants to breathe clean air, drink clean water, or live past 2030," Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the youth-led climate group Sunrise Movement, said in a statement accusing the Trump administration of choosing "billionaires over life on Earth."
"The Trump administration is trying to roll back decades of critical health and safety regulations that have saved millions of lives and are all that's standing between us and runaway climate change," Shiney-Ajay continued. "Trump doesn't care about working people, all he cares about is pleasing the oil and gas billionaires who bankrolled his campaign. They know their industry is dying. Wind and solar are cheaper and safer than fossil fuels."
"So, they are trying to buy their way to profitability by rigging the rules in their favor," she added. "If they get their way, they will wreck our air, our water, burn down our homes, and hand future generations an unlivable climate."
TRANSLATION: Fuck you and fuck your future. Corporate polluters can dump sewage in your water, spew toxic gas into your air, and double down on burning the fossil fuels driving us into climate apocalypse. Billionaires can do whatever they want, and everyday people can eat shit.
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— Sunrise Movement ( @sunrisemvmt.bsky.social) March 12, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Matthew Tejada, a former deputy assistant administrator at the Office of Environmental Justice for over a decade before leaving the EPA in December 2023, now serves as senior vice president for environmental health at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). He toldCBS News Wednesday that "generations of progress are being erased from our federal government."
"Trump's EPA is taking us back to a time of unfettered pollution across the nation, leaving every American exposed to toxic chemicals, dirty air, and contaminated water," Tejada said in a separate NRDC statement Wednesday.
Tejada continued:
The grants that EPA moved to cancel are some of the most important to help make communities across the nation safer, healthier, and more prosperous. They are helping rural Virginia coal communities prepare for extreme flooding, installing sewage systems on rural Alabama homes, and turning an abandoned, polluted site in Tampa, Florida into a campus for healthcare, job training, and a small business development.
Those who have paid the highest price for pollution, with their health, are now the first to be sacrificed by Trump's EPA. But they will not be the last. Every American should be worried about what this portends. We are witnessing the first step of removing environmental protections from everyone, as the chemical industry and fossil fuel producers get their way—and the rest of us will pay with our health and lost legal rights.
On Tuesday, the EPA also canceled grant agreements worth $20 billion issued during former President Joe Biden's administration as part of a so-called green bank meant to fund clean energy and climate mitigation projects. The move prompted a lawsuit by Climate United Fund, a nonprofit green investment fund.
In another alarming development, The New Republicreported Wednesday that the FBI under Director Kash Patel is "moving to criminalize groups like Habitat for Humanity for receiving grants from the Environmental Protection Agency under the Biden administration."
Responding to Zeldin's sweeping actions Wednesday, the environmental group Sierra Club said the EPA is "attacking safeguards to limit pollution from power plants and vehicles, methane and other deadly emissions from oil and gas sources, mercury and air toxics standards, the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, wastewater regulations at coal plants, and many other critical protections for the environment and public health."
"The standards that the EPA seeks to undermine are based on a strong scientific record and serve a number of public interests, including lowering the amount of deadly toxins fossil fuel-fired plants are allowed to release into the air and water; reducing pollution at steel and aluminum mills; and requiring fossil fuel companies to control pollution like soot, ozone, and toxic and hazardous air pollutants at power plants," the group continued.
"If these rules are withdrawn, the American public will see devastating health impacts," Sierra Club warned. "EPA estimated that just one of the rules would prevent 4,500 premature deaths and save $46 billion in health costs by 2032. The health toll and cost of rescinding all the rules listed in the EPA's announcement would be vastly higher."
"Donald Trump's actions will cause thousands of Americans to die each year."
Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous said: "Donald Trump's actions will cause thousands of Americans to die each year. It will send thousands of children to the hospital and force even more to miss school. It will pollute the air and water in communities across the country. And it will cause our energy bills to go up even more than they already are because of his disastrous policies. But as they put all of us at risk, Trump and his administration are celebrating because it will help corporate polluters pad their profit margin."
David Arkush, director of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen's Climate Program, said that "no matter how the EPA disguises the decision to roll back pollution rules, today's moves will make our air and water dirtier and make Americans sicker."
"Zeldin is granting the wishes of Trump's billionaire corporate cronies, plain and simple, at a massive cost to our health and wallets," he added. "The announcement flies in the face of the EPA's core mission to protect human health and safeguard our environment."
Green groups vowed to fight the Trump administration's attacks on environmental protections and justice.
"Come hell and high water, raging fires and deadly heatwaves, Trump and his cronies are bent on putting polluter profits ahead of people's lives," said CBD's Rylander. "This move won't stand up in court. We're going to fight it every step of the way."
Jealous of the Sierra Club said, "Make no mistake about it: We will fight these outrageous rollbacks tooth and nail, and we will use all resources at our disposal to continue protecting the health and safety of all Americans."
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