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Students Take Back Democracy
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VOTER ENGAGEMENT—Working with hundreds of student volunteers across the state, CALPIRG campus organizers registered 15,000 young voters on 19 different college campuses across the state and contacted 22,000 young voters to turn them out to the polls in November. |
CALPIRG’s campus organizers, based on college campuses throughout the state, led a massive voter registration campaign across California in an effort to increase youth participation in the democratic process. Working with student volunteers, CALPIRG’s campus team registered 15,000 young voters on 19 different campuses across the state.
Not content with just registering new voters, the team then marshalled 750 volunteers to contact over 22,000 young voters and turn them out to the polls. The goal of the project, conducted in conjunction with other PIRGs all across the country, is to both increase young voter participation and to force politicians to address the issues that matter most to young voters – affordable education, the environment, clean energy and more
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Health Care Victories in Sacramento
The end of the legislative session brought a series of long-awaited health care victories for Californians. In late September, Governor Schwarzenegger signed three pieces of prescription drug legislation into law. Among the bills was AB 2911, CALPIRG-backed legislation that will create a prescription drug discount program for more than 5 million Californians. CALPIRG and our allies have supported similar proposals in both the legislature and on the ballot for the past three years.
The governor also signed legislation that will guarantee fair hospital billing practices for low-income uninsured Californians. The law requires hospitals to charge low-income uninsured patients no more than the highest government program prices. Prior to this legislation, hospitals routinely billed the uninsured at significantly higher rates than insurers and government programs.
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CALPIRG Defeats Bad IRS Proposal
CALPIRG stopped the IRS from weakening consumer privacy rules by allowing tax preparers like H&R Block to share or sell Californians’ tax filings with corporations that want to market products or services to us. The proposed changes would have made consumers significantly more susceptible to identity theft.
Working with a network of consumer groups, CALPIRG alerted the media to the IRS proposal, prompting dozens of outraged media stories and editorials around the country. An advocate testified on our behalf before the public hearing on the proposal in Washington, D.C., and more than 2,000 CALPIRG activists sent in comments directly to the IRS. After the public hearing last April, the IRS quietly dropped the proposed rules and has not pursued them since.
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New Study on Oil Industry Money in Politics
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SLICK POLITICS—The Chevron refinery in Richmond, CA. |
In November, CALPIRG Education Fund released a new report that quantified the lobbying expenditures and campaign contributions by the oil industry and revealed a sharp increase in dollars spent to defeat efforts to decrease California’s dependence on oil over the last two years.
The report, “Slick Politics: How the oil industry has spent millions to keep California dependent on oil,” found that the oil industry has spent more than $17 million since the beginning of 2005 on lobbying and campaign contributions to candidates and political parties, excluding their contributions to ballot initiative campaigns. In the report, CALPIRG Education Fund urged newly elected leaders to push aside oil industry influence and adopt policies to increase energy and transportation alternatives.
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Bipartisan Progress Balks On Chemical Security
In October, the U.S. House failed to improve safety protections at chemical facilities. The Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006 would have required the most dangerous chemical and manufacturing plants to look for safer ways of doing business, such as using safer alternatives of toxic chemicals whenever those alternatives exist.
Instead, the chemical industry reached a closed-door deal to displace permanent and comprehensive chemical security provisions with weaker, temporary provisions. The House approved the weaker bill in October.
Across the United States, thousands of industrial facilities use and store hazardous chemicals in quantities that put large numbers of Americans at risk of serious injury or death. The risk is widespread—according to EPA, over 100 facilities each put more than a million people at risk of injury or death in the event of an accident or terrorist attack. Despite industry claims of boosted protections, federal studies confirm that security at most chemical facilities ranges from poor to nonexistent.
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Advocates Stand Up To Assault on Food Safety
Last year, food-borne E. coli outbreaks caused by contaminated spinach heightened the country’s awareness of food safety laws. Incredibly, Congress was at that time considering legislation that would roll back food safety protections at the behest of the food manufacturers lobby.
CALPIRG is working in the Senate to stop the attack on our food safety protections, and calling on senators to oppose any bill that would take away the rights of states to protect people from chemicals in food. Legislation being debated in Congress would eliminate proven food safety and labeling standards that are more protective than federal standards, even when the federal government has no regulation on the books.
CALPIRG is working with a broad coalition of state and local food safety officials and 39 attorneys general to oppose the bill.
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