This guarantees that our workers in our communities are not being treated differently from workers in New York and New Jersey, and can peacefully form their union. As Mayflower continues to be successful, the workers should also see the result of their hard work reflected in their wages, benefits, protections, and working conditions.

The current pay schedule is not competitive with the current job market in and outside of the education field. Furthermore, it does not account for the cost of living in the metropolitan Nashville area. As a result, our children are losing talented teachers to other counties and other industries. Also, without enough substitute teachers and support staff, educators bear an unfair and heavy workload that ultimately creates an unhealthy education experience for both children and teachers alike. The injustice our children experience when high-quality teachers are lost due to a system that underpays and undervalues them is unconscionable.

In October and November of 2019, Maine’s first and fourth largest cities made history. Portland and South Portland became the first places in Maine to declare a climate emergency. Brunswick and Bar Harbor declared an emergency shortly after, with more on the way or in the process. A similar resolution has now been presented to the Lewiston School Committee. It is only fitting that a school, a place where children learn about the world, listen to the youth activists. Climate change is often seen as a scary and abstract concept. How would understanding around the crisis change if students’ schools recognized it for the emergency it is? How many more environmental leaders would we have growing up today? This is why we urge Lewiston Public Schools to declare climate emergency.

Right now, Trump thinks he’s unstoppable -- but he’s wrong. Trump has been asking Congress to rubber-stamp a renewal of the Patriot Act that will let his administration continue to spy on Americans without a warrant. With your help, we can stop him! Democratic Senator Ron Wyden and Republican Senator Steve Daines introduced a bill called the Safeguarding Americans’ Private Records Act that will keep Trump from using invasive, warrantless spying on Americans. Because it has bipartisan support, this can pass. What will really help right now is telling your members of Congress -- right now -- to vote for it before the March 15 deadline.

Southern state Democrats have been consistently left out of the Presidential campaign trail despite of these being some of the most diverse states in the country. Stacey Abrams is the most prominent national voice fighting voter suppression and advocates for our concerns, particularly affecting people in the South.

Our democracy is for sale. Superdelegates may be tempted to take dark money donations to vote for billionaire-sponsored candidates, denying true representational democracy to their constituents.

We are entering an incredibly perilous time for our democracy. The signs of creeping authoritarianism, and indeed, fascism, are everywhere. Robert Reich has pointed out that anti-democratic leaders and forces control every branch of government. In the last several days, we had, 1. Trump order the firing of Vindman and his brother; 2. Trump boast that he did this in retaliation; 3. Trump tweet suggest that the military consider disciplining Vindman; 4. Trump influence the Justice Department to change a sentencing recommendation for a Trump friend; 5. 4 AUSAs resign over the politicization of DOJ; 6. Trump boast about his power over DOJ; and 7. Trump intimidate and threaten an Article III Judge. I may be missing more, but each one of these is, in my view, a "triggering event" that should prompt an immediate and vitally necessary response to defend our democracy. As Masha Gessen teaches us, we cannot count on our institutions to save us. Instead, we must save them. There are no guardrails as our democracy careens toward the abyss, and we the people are the ultimate bulwark. The frog is nearly boiled, and the temperature is ratcheting up fast. We need leaders who have the megaphone, the institutional clout, and the organizational heft to help us take to the streets. We need MoveOn to do the thing it has done so well in the past and for which it is so well-suited: mobilize us before it's too late!

We need a presidential candidate running who will end the atrocities of citizens of the United States being stripped of their human and civil rights.

Donald Trump has already shown that he thinks he's above the law, and will act accordingly. But the Justice Department showing preferential treatment for Trump's criminal accomplices is a threat to the country. This turn has come within a week of the Senate GOP refusing to hold Trump accountable for his impeachable offenses. If the Department of Justice's Inspector General and the House Judiciary Committee don't act now, Trump will be shown that he is free to bend the law to his whim.

The very foundation of our democracy relies on the rule of law. We have an adversarial legal system, but when attorneys lie in court it distorts the entire process. Process is important! Many of the attacks on our system of government we have witnessed in recent years, have been attacks on process. This must stop.

Representative Garcia stated, in a public forum, that "...in the Constitution of the United States (if) they are found guilty of being a socialist member you either go to prison or are shot,” which is neither true nor becoming of a public servant of your stature. "They’re enemies of the free state,” he continued. “What do we do with our enemies in war? In Vietnam, (Afghanistan), all those. What did we do?" With these quotes, he demonstrated that he lacks the critical thinking skills and moral rectitude to represent Montanans in any capacity. Further, he disgraced our state on the world stage. Most seriously, he incited violence among his constituents for political purposes. This is a perilous time for our nation, in which political partisanship has taken priority over good governance and civility at every level. We the people must stand up to those who would see this trend continue, who would brand their constituents, indeed their neighbors, as enemies of the free state for nothing more than expression of their political views. The statements made, and doubled down on, by Representative Garcia are an alarming escalation of this violent rhetoric and he must be held accountable for them. Only pressure from the people of Montana can compel him to take responsibility for his actions, so please join me in condemning him publicly. By acting together in the interests of our state and our communities, we can begin to change the ugly course our politics have taken.

The POST Act addresses the long-unmet need for civilian oversight of NYPD surveillance practices, particularly the acquisition and deployment of novel, highly-invasive technologies. For years, the NYPD has built up an arsenal of spy tools on the public tab while trying to block public notice and debate. These tools not only include the so-called “gang database,”[1] but also items like facial recognition, IMSI catchers (so-called “stingrays”), and automated license plate readers that can monitor a vehicle’s location throughout the city.[2] These tools threaten all New Yorkers' privacy, but they pose a particularly potent threat to our immigrant communities and New Yorkers of color. Unchecked, the growing use of surveillance technology threatens to obscure and automate racial inequalities under the guise of unbiased computer systems. And too often, these systems create a risk of information sharing with federal agencies, including Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”). For example, the NYPD has contracted for years with the private firm Vigilant Solutions, which operates a national database of over 5 billion license plate data points. Shockingly, in recent years, we learned that Vigilant Solutions was not just contracting with local police departments, it was also contracting with ICE. This is the vendor that the NYPD uses to record countless New Yorkers’ license plates per day, and we do not have an accurate understanding of how the NYPD may be sharing license plate data with ICE. Even worse, the NYPD relies on Vigilant Solutions’ artificial intelligence to map out social networks, label New Yorkers as “criminal associates,” and create databases based on the company’s unproven algorithms. This is just one example of countless surveillance tools that requires a systematic solution. The POST Act is not just a comprehensive response, but also a modest one. The NYPD can continue using these tools by complying with limited protections against waste, discrimination, and misuse. In fact, the POST Act would be one of the most limited surveillance reform bills in the country, especially when viewed in comparison to San Francisco’s and Oakland’s oversight legislation, which also contain outright bans on facial recognition technology or to Massachusetts’s proposed state-wide moratorium on facial recognition. Additionally, many of the jurisdictions require legislators to approve each and every surveillance system their municipality buys, unlike the POST Act, which only requires public notice. The measure is not just widely supported by your City Council colleagues, it’s even endorsed by the New York Times.[3] The message is clear: civilian oversight of surveillance enhances the public’s trust in police departments and public safety. After a hearing before the Public Safety Committee in December, thirty-two City Council members and the Public Advocate have now signed on as POST Act cosponsors. The time is now for a vote of the full City Council. [1] https://www.stopspying.org/latest-news/2019/7/23/the-nypds-gang-database-a-new-age-of-stop-and-frisk [2] https://www.stopspying.org/latest-news/2019/9/26/domain-awareness-system [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/18/opinion/nypd-post-act-surveillance.html