miactionlist, 4/11/2017

Politics don’t just happen in Washington, DC! The purpose of this weekly newsletter is to promote progressive policies in the State of Michigan by contacting our state representatives and state senators directly.

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First Steps

Look up your state representative and state senator and put them in your phone book for all future calling.

Tips for Calling

We recognize that calling your representatives and senators can be intimidating. For the pieces of legislation we highlight each week, our goal is to provide you with some basic data, analysis, and talking points for you to steer the conversation, but we encourage you to personalize your message in ways that make sense to you. When applicable, it’s particularly powerful to share your personal experiences and expertise related to given legislation.

This Week’s Actions

~When calling your representative and senator, also ask them about upcoming coffee hours!~

1.   Stop state-sponsored funding of anti-choice groups

Senate Bill 163 proposes that the Secretary of State issue fundraising license plates to benefit the Choose Life Michigan Fund. This bill has cleared the Transportation Committee and is supposed to go to the “Committee of the Whole” on April 18th, so action now is critical.

Call your state senator to oppose this bill.

Talking Points:

• Money in this fund will be distributed by Right to Life of Michigan to organizations that provide abortion alternatives. We fully agree that abortion alternatives should be promoted. But the way to reduce abortions is through education, access to birth control, and affordable healthcare. As this bill is written, funds collected may go to propaganda and media campaigns run by groups that don’t even provide health services.
• Taking the conversation away from the emotional topic of abortion: the state should not serve as a fundraising vehicle for ideological groups. Period. This bill sets a dangerous precedent for this.
• "Let's not put political speech on our license plates. Buy a bumper sticker," - Rebekah Warren

Talking points adapted from this concise one-page summary of the problems with this bill.

2.   Cities should determine their own law enforcement priorities and not be forced to act as ICE agents.

House Bill 4105 attempts to explicitly take away cities’ rights to function as sanctuary cities.

Call your state representative to oppose this bill. This bill is still in committee, so your representative may tell you they will wait to see what the final form of the bill is if/when it comes up for a vote; let them know that no form of the bill with this intent would be okay with you for all of the following reasons.

Talking Points:

• Our Constitution requires that police must have probable cause in order to deprive someone of their liberty. The Constitution applies to everyone in our state, regardless of immigration status.
• Communities are safer when victims of crime feel comfortable reporting them to the police. This bill will make it harder for police to do their jobs, and harder for victims of crime to come forward.
• Immigrants are part of our community and should not be subjected to needless harassment over their perceived immigration status. This bill is an invitation for police officers to engage in racial and ethnic profiling and to treat people perceived as “foreign” differently.
• We oppose HB 4105 because it will make our community less safe and lead to the systematic violation of constitutional rights of Michigan residents, citizen and immigrant alike.

These talking points are adapted from ACLU Michigan’s platform (see p. 16). For more information, also see this description from the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center.

Suggested Reading

Each week we share some recent media we’ve found worthwhile. We’ll keep it short! We know many of you already have long reading lists.

Former educator and first term state representative for District 8 (Detroit), Sherry Gay-Dagnogo, recently recommended watching the new documentary Get In the Way (about congressmen John Lewis) as one of the most important things we can do to prepare ourselves to actively resist regressive politics. Put it on your watch list!

Other Actions

While the focus of this newsletter is “armchair activism” we’ll also share a featured in-person action each week for those interested and able.

Meeting up with your representatives in person and having conversations is a powerful way to  influence legislation. The Michigan Legislature is on recess until April 18, 2017 and your representative and senators should be holding coffee hours during this time. If your representative and senator don’t have any coffee hours listed on their websites, ask when you call them about the issues listed above! These tend to be small affairs where you can really get your voice heard. 

Thanks for reading!

If you have questions or want to get involved in this project, email us at miactionlist@gmail.com.

Check out our website (ever-changing) at www.miactionlist.org. If you want to suggest an action, you can do it there.