Portland needs some sunshine. Portlanders are mostly left in the dark about how city funds are spent. Last year, the City of Portland earned a "D minus" for how transparent the city makes information about spending and subsidies available to the public online. [1] This is unacceptable. We need to make sure Mayor Hales hears from a lot of people across Portland so he knows that the public wants better transparency from our city so we can engage in decisions about public funding priorities and hold the city accountable for spending public dollars appropriately. [1] Transparency in City Spending, OSPIRG Foundation. 1/23/13.

For years, Senator Mark Udall of Colorado has been fighting to rein in abuses of federal power in the name of combating terrorism. Sen. Udall warned the American people about the dangers of mass surveillance against millions of innocent Americans for years before anyone knew the name Edward Snowden. To Udall’s great credit, he has consistently fought for our civil liberties in Congress--regardless of which party occupies the White House. Today, Sen. Udall needs our help.

Senate Select Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein has publicly accused the CIA of spying on her committee, thereby violating the law and the Constitution and calling into question the Senate Intelligence Committee’s ability to perform its responsibility to conduct effective oversight of the CIA. (1) Behind the dispute over CIA spying is a dispute over the classification of two key documents: the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s use of torture during the Bush Administration, and an internal CIA review that corroborated the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report’s criticism while the CIA was officially telling the Senate Intelligence Committee that its report’s criticisms were wrong. (2) Under Section 8 of Senate Resolution 400 – the resolution that established the Senate committee in 1976, after the Church Committee’s investigation of abuses by U.S. intelligence agencies - the Senate Intelligence Committee has the power to declassify documents if it determines that is in the public interest, without the approval of the executive branch. If the executive branch objects, under the provisions of Section 8, the declassification can be approved by the full Senate. (3) Urge the Senate Intelligence Committee and the full Senate to move to declassify the committee’s report on CIA torture and the CIA’s internal review, and urge the Obama Administration to fully cooperate, by signing and sharing our petition. References 1. “Feinstein: CIA may have violated Constitution with monitoring of Senate staffers,” Ali Watkins, Jonathan S. Landay, and Marisa Taylor, McClatchy News, March 11, 2014, http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/03/11/220849/feinstein-defends-senate-intel.html 2. “Letter to President Obama on CIA Spying on Congress,” Project on Government Oversight et al, March 12, 2014, http://www.pogo.org/our-work/letters/2014/letter-to-president-obama-on-cia-spying-on-congress.html 3. “Wyden: Intel committee used provision once to release classified info,” Steve Benham, KATU.com, Oct 23, 2013, http://www.katu.com/politics/With-power-to-disclose-classified-info-intel-committee-invokes-it-only-once-ron-wyden-228554661.html. 1976 S.Res. 400 is contained as Appendix A in this document: http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/pdfs/94_comm_prt.pdf

The politics at the top of our federal government have resulted in a stagnation of our lawmaking process. Hard party lines have destroyed cooperation and compromise. Lobbyists have entrenched current representatives' financial interests and plugged their ears to the voices of the public. It's time to rotate the board!

Yes, I am personally a victim of this law. I am one of every person that has had medical mishaps who have no chance of compensation when an error occurs. Anyone in this state that goes under the knife has no recourse if an error occurs. I will have to go to another state when I need my next surgery for fear another mishap. I have two complete boxes of medical records to back me up but in NC it doesn't matter.

Cancer affects 40% of the population and is becoming the largest health concern in the US. Most medicine today is costly and has adverse side effects. We need to start looking at new ideas to solve a new problem.

Senator Jeff Klein is the biggest obstacle to the progressive agenda in New York State. In 2012 New Yorkers elected a Democratic majority in the NYS Senate. Jeff Klein, claiming to be an "independent Democrat", abandoned the Democrats and made a self-serving deal with the Republican minority, transforming what should have been a powerless Republican minority into wall of obstruction. By standing with the Republicans, Klein bears responsibility for blocking the progressive agenda on countless issues -- a minimum wage increase, strengthening tenant protections, financing Mayor de Blasio's plan for Universal Pre-K, campaign finance reform, protecting women's rights and a ban on hydro-fracking to name a few. Jeff Klein has not acted like an "independent" Democrat -- he has empowered Republicans, and joined their obstructionist agenda. Oliver Koppell, throughout your public service career many have called you an independent Democrat. We applaud your independence. We even applaud those times some of us may have disagreed with you. We trust your history of independent, progressive Democratic leadership. You should run to defeat Jeff Klein and give progressive New Yorkers back the State Senate. Original Signers (all residents in the 34th Senate District of NYS): Dart Westphal / Margaret Groarke / Barry Soltz / Susan Moscou / Jack Marth Mollie Welsh Kruger / Alex Kratz / Elena Mora / John Kruger / Robert Jackson

A report by CommonWealth Magazine says the Massachusetts legislature may fail to pass the Massachusetts Disclosure Act in time for the 2014 state elections. That means corporations can spend unlimted money to influence elections without disclosing their spending, and Super PACs can spend unlimited money without disclosing their donors in real time. That is unacceptable! We already saw this play out in the 2013 Boston mayoral elections, when shadowy outside groups spent millions to influence the elections without disclosing their donors. Let's not have a repeat in 2014 when the stakes are even higher. Take action now! Tell your state legislators to pass disclosure reform now. It's the voters right to know which special interests are trying to influence their votes.

By the end of this year, most of our troops will be home from Afghanistan and our nation will finally turn the page on more than 13 years of war. The President has promised to pivot our nation from its war-footing, do some nation building here at home, and put our fiscal house in order by finally reining in the Pentagon's bloated and waste-ridden budget. But the Pentagon has a trick to keep the money flowing, a massive slush fund known in Washington as the 'Overseas Contingency Operations' (OCO) account. By using that slush fund, the Pentagon and its friends in Congress have managed to not only protect billions of dollars in wasteful spending, but to completely avoid any of the dramatic cuts that domestic programs like education and health care have faced over the past few years (1)! It’s time to get rid of the Pentagon’s slush fund. Our troops are finally coming home from the Middle East, yet the Pentagon's budget remains sky-high. Over the past year, more than half our troops in Afghanistan came home, yet the Pentagon's account for the war actually increased! This wasn't because the 30,000 troops in Afghanistan were suddenly twice as costly. Rather than bringing our tax dollars home with our troops - and using some of that money to pay to heal the wounds of our veterans from over a decade of war - Congress chose to protect the profits of Pentagon contractors by adding billions to the Pentagon's OCO slush fund on spending that had nothing to do with the war in Afghanistan and everything to do with special interests in Washington. Recently, the Pentagon released its budget for the coming year, and it looks ready to continue the gimmicks, keeping its slush fund for years to come. Every dollar the Pentagon puts in its slush fund is a dollar less for early childhood education, nutrition assistance, and health care, all of which are being slammed by deep budget cuts. Some in Congress are calling for giving the Pentagon even more money and paying for it by cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Congress and the Pentagon are depending on Americans not noticing their budget gimmicks. They're hoping that they can keep using the pretext of the war in Afghanistan to throw tens of billions of dollars into failing weapons systems and wasteful spending at the Pentagon. Thankfully, we can stop them. Sign this petition today to demand that Congress get rid of the Pentagon's slush fund, cut wasteful spending at the Pentagon, and bring our tax dollars home after 13 years of war. (1) http://huff.to/1fQJmaa

I would like to see the entirety of our Congress use their legislative powers to reverse the Supreme courts decision on citizens united, thereby starting to remove big money from our political apparatus. Our government should be for the people not just rich elitists. We the peoplewant our voices heard, and we shouldn't have to pay for it. End Citizens United now!

When I decided to go work for a nonprofit environmental group, I did so in part because the government promised to forgive the balance of our loan debt if I worked in a public service (NGO) job for 10+ years. This made the corresponding dip in income palatable. With it came lower monthly payments (based on income), but the tradeoff was that we would accrue much more interest over time. This was okay if the government was going to forgive the debt. Based on that promise from the government, I declined a job at a law firm and went to work an environmental non-profit dedicated to river restoration. Now, President Obama is proposing a change that would penalize me for making the decision retroactively. The changes would increase my monthly payments by 5X, and would revoke the loan forgiveness promise that I relied upon, and instead cap it at an unreasonably low level. These changes make the prospect of having children, buying a house, or continuing public service career paths very difficult. President Obama's proposing this change under the auspices of reducing the cost of higher education. But instead of requiring higher education institutions to limit tuition levels (to qualify for federal loans), or imposing the risk of default on those schools, he's chosen to impose the penalty on students, and those dedicated to missions that serve the public interest.

Maryland’s workers deserve a fair wage! Vote for SB 331 and HB 295 raise the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016! We believe that to strengthen our State we need to strengthen our workers. While corporate profits are at an all-time high our families are being left behind. The current minimum wage of $7.25 keeps our working families in poverty. By raising the minimum wage we can help provide the boost to these families deserve while supporting local business and creating job opportunities. A recently published report by the National Women’s Law Center stated the importance of a higher minimum wage and a higher tipped minimum wage to ensure fair pay for women and members of our community. Vote for SB 331 and HB 295!