Under the "winner take all" method, there have been elections where the candidate who wins the popular vote fails to win the electoral college vote. The "winner take all" method is the cause of excessive political spending and severe tensions in a few battleground states. This petition seeks to reduce to role of money in elections.

We have not raised the minimum wage in Hawaii in 7 years. While our cost of living is higher than almost any other state, our minimum wage is behind 19 other states. Our people have a hard time getting by and most work two jobs. Raising the floor will help a lot of families do a little better.

Unfortunately, the ideal of streamlining mental health treatment can be turned on its axis by forces beyond our control. Taking the subway one stop past sanity, the state of Texas has decided to be tightfisted; free falling to dead last among all 50 states in mental health expenditures. In turn, this has tipped the scale in favor of astronomical numbers of people needing services juxtaposed to fewer professionals with lower pay and benefits. Waiting lists have swelled unabated in some areas. Psychiatrists, case managers, and those in the trenches are having difficulty shouldering the load of mental health patients that get services. These unappreciated professionals are dedicated, self-sacrificing, and compassionate yet their pay and benefits barely rise above the threshold of most janitorial jobs. Even the most skilled service coordinators, with time management creativity, can’t clone themselves to be at 50 places at once. Pinched for time, the franchise mentality has taken hold as patients are rushed through the psychiatry drive-thru, each receiving a therapeutic happy meal. Mc-therapy is taking the place of measured, time-spent, palliative modalities that foster better outcomes. Feeding the soul/psyche is immeasurably more complex than feeding the body. Meager spending and the DSHS paradigm shift to Resiliency and Disease Management has resulted in turning away droves of people who do not fit neatly into the diagnostic trifecta: schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, and major depression. People with personality disorders, dissociative disorders, and anxiety disorders are dumped cargo; jettisoned out of public services with no safety parachute. Paying little homage to mental health care has a price tag; one of them being the Texas penal system is the new makeshift hospital for mental health consumers. Emergency rooms and hospitals also absorb the overflow, but what never seems to factor into this is the immense human suffering that results. Why are people left in the unforgivable throes of mental illness with no relief in the state of Texas?

Stacey Campfield (R) Knoxville, proposed law SB132, to "breaking the cycle of poverty" by reducing Temporary Assistance to Needy Families benefits for children not making “satisfactory academic progress” in school.

Organized Stalking and Electronic Harassment of innocent citizens in Connecticut. These crimes need to be acknowledged and dealt with rather than ignored or treated as symptoms of psychosis.

I am an Instructional Aide. I would like to get my teaching cert. but I am unable due to finances. This petition is to work out a way for Instructional aides to become certified without having to pay to go to school.

This petition is to promote tolerance and end bullying in Oklahoma schools. The health of our students and public school system is in the balance.

Using Washable,Cleanable,and Reusable Fuel and Oil Filters !

Listen to our neighbors in Pennsylvania who have had their water, air, land and home values ruined for decades to come to know we must not allow fracking in NY State. Protect our health, organic farming, wine industry and our economy. The process of fracking contributes more CO2 to the atmosphere than coal production. We do not want another devastating "Sandy" storm.

I work in the film industry as many of my fellow Minnesotans do...I have to leave my home in Minnesota to work because, there is not much work in the film industry in Minnesota. I would prefer to stay in Minnesota and I know many others who feel the same way. The film incentive can bring much needed income to Minnesota if run properly.

Our Sate Government has been taken Hostage by Big Money, Voters suppression and Gerrymandering to force the wills of the powerful and Rich who' Ideas are not the wills of the Progressive State. Individual Rights, Jobs and opportunity are being stripped away.

My students who have grade point averages of 3.00 and above are denied college acceptance and financial aid even though they have completed Elementary, Middle and High school in the United States. These students came into the country with their parents from nine months to five years old. Education is of paramount importance for all. Please support our bright, young, future generation.