I am an African-American Democratic local elected official for the Town of Leesburg, VA and I have challenged the Loudoun County Democratic committee on their requirement for a signed loyalty statement contained in their membership application. My efforts to have a conversation to address this problem have been dismissed and I, as an elected Democratic leader, have been subjected to public retaliation by the local party leaders. Democrats know that the right to vote for all Americans was hard fought and is sacred and fundamental to the principles of the party. The Democratic Party was founded on the promise of an expanded democracy and that the inclusion of many different voices makes our democracy work better. The right to vote is a key principle of the Democratic Party and a core goal is to maximize voter participation and not to control how you vote. As a democratic value, we must all support efforts to defeat ill-motivated voter suppression tactics and to preserve the fundamental right to vote. Loudoun County Democratic Committee of VA has violated this core value and is subverting the fundamental right to vote by engaging in these efforts by promoting ill-motivated voter suppression tactics to unduly influence the outcome of local elections. The Loudoun County Democratic Committee in their January 2018 membership notification letter stated: “…at its core, LCDC membership means that you will support our nominees and endorsees…This means more than not supporting Republicans, it also means not supporting Independents in races.” This statement alone is an affront to every person who bled, fought and died for the rights of all citizens to freely vote. I could have chosen to simply not renew my membership and walked away as many others have, but this is a fundamental wrong that must be corrected. The LCDC leadership must repeal this loyalty pledge and restore the democratic values and principles of “…preserving the fundamental right to vote." I urge you to join my efforts and sign this petition. The freedom to vote as your values dictate must be a protected right and not the right of any party to control your voting choice. I believe in people over politics and now it’s time for the people to speak.

Here are five reasons Scott Pruitt should be fired immediately. 1- In Pruitt's first year in office, he spent more than $105,000 on first-class flights. 2. Pruitt paid a health care lobbyist, who is married to an energy industry lobbyist, $50 a night—a sweetheart deal in that neighborhood—for access to a condo just a block from the Capitol. He and his daughter stayed there on and off at a cost of more than $6,000, and it was used at times for Republican fundraising events. When authorities had to break down the door after he was mysteriously unresponsive one day, the EPA used taxpayer dollars to cover the $2,460 repair. 3. Pruitt insisted on spending $42,000 taxpayer dollars to build a private phone booth in his office. 4. After being denied approval by the White House, Pruitt's office found a loophole via the Safe Drinking Water Act to give massive, taxpayer-funded salary increases to two of his favorite staffers (from $107,435 to $164,200 and from $86,460 to $114,590). It's part of the same workaround he used to hire chemical industry lobbyist Nancy Beck as deputy head of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention so she wouldn't need to agree to an ethics agreement. 5. Pruitt is destroying regulations to ensure clean air and water and is leading Trump's call to back out of the Paris Agreement because he's long been tied to special interests. The Washington Pos editorial board said, "A swamp monster is running the EPA." The LA Times called for Pruitt to be fired and said: "He does not belong in public service. He's an embarrassment even to this administration. Which is saying something." The Concord Monitor said: "The embattled administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, who has never had the slightest interest in protecting the environment, has proven that he has as much contempt for ethics rules as he does the settled science of climate change." There's so much more, but these are just some of the reasons Pruitt is a stain on the EPA, drain on taxpayer dollars, bad for the environment, and should be replaced with someone committed to public service.

FBISD is proposing to close Thurgood Marshall High School and repurpose the school as an Early College Program (Academy HS). The district is also considering rezoning Marshall students to surrounding high schools to reduce the overcrowding at Ridge Point HS. Sign the petition! Help stop the proposed rezoning plan to remove Thurgood Marshall High School. Don't let them close our school!

Plastic kills over one million sea birds and one hundred thousand marine animals are killed by plastic pollution every year, and that is just what is found in fishing nets. Divers are finding virtual forests of plastic in the oceans, throughout the world. Shopping bags take ten to one thousand years to decompose, and when they do, they leave toxic sludge in the soil and oceans. The time is now to reduce plastic waste, because there is no tomorrow!

This petition is to demand that Congress take action against Sinclair Broadcast Group becasue of its politically polarizing monopoly on American news media, thereby suppressing voices of opposition - which is a deliberate undermining of Democracy and a free thinking society. Different viewpoints are essential to a healthy democratic society and are representative to various degrees of the current state of mind of the people in their respective municipalities, locales, districts, and states. When one or two (or a few) industrial bodies gain a monopoly, Democracy in said arena is dead and the conversation officially beomes one-sided in order to increase that body's profit margin. This is not freedom. In the case of Sinclair, it is brainwashing, and thereby enslavement of the audience through a continuous chain of misinformation, advertisements, and a directional politically-oriented agenda. Sinclair Broadcast Group must be broken up and scattered into the wind, never to return, in order to begin restoring the foundation of our Democracy along with the integrity of our news media.

In 2016, Syngenta poisoned 19 workers at a research farm in Hawaii. They were exposed to Dow’s nerve gas pesticide chlorpyrifos -- without any protective gear. After the workers were exposed, Syngenta failed to provide adequate decontamination supplies or emergency medical attention. More than 45,000 members of Friends of the Earth like you have called on the EPA to hold Syngenta accountable. But the agency hasn’t responded yet. So now, we need to turn up the heat by pushing Congress to step in.

Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Zinke are trying to open the area near Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado to oil and gas drilling. This National Park is home to iconic and unique landscapes and rare wildlife. Fossil fuel development would put all that at risk while polluting our air, water, and climate. The Bureau of Land Management wants to know what the public thinks of this plan -- but we only have until April 6th to speak up. So we need you to speak up NOW!

Bayer the Bee-Slayer and Monsanto the Butterfly Killer are trying to merge into one giant pesticide corporation. This merger is happening as part of a massive wave of consolidation in our food system. The Department of Justice is still reviewing the merger and Congress could help push the department to reject it -- but we need your help to convince it to act!

Oxitec, owned by biotech giant Intrexon, wants to release millions of GMO mosquitoes in Florida and Texas. These mosquitoes could pose major risks to fragile ecosystems like the Florida Keys and may pose risks to our health. Our environment should not be a testing ground for risky new GMO technologies. We need to stop these experimental mosquitoes before they are released from labs into our environment.

As one parent, Julie Shinn, wrote on Twitter: "If we're not going to do anything about our lax gun laws, then my son needs a bullet proof backpack, not a clear one." The clear backpacks will serve as a daily reminder to students that our nationally elected members of Congress and White House occupants refuse to take meaningful action to stop mass murders caused by guns. If the kids have to carry around these clear bags, it only seems fair that those in Congress and White House should, too. The March For Our Lives organizers are asking for: Passing a law to ban the sale of assault weapons, prohibiting the sale of high-capacity magazines, closing the loophole in our background check law for online and gun show purchases. Until these demands are met, we should ask Trump, Pence, Ryan, McConnell, and the entire Congressional and White House staff to be required to only use clear backpacks. Really, it's for their own safely. Sign the petition.

My petition concerns designing new recycling containers that are just as ideal as trash bins for large complexes. For an entire apartment complex and even food-industry spots in San Marcos, it's common to see only a couple of small recycling bins (that someone who owns a house has one of), or even none at all in most cases (just as my apartment complex). This is a striking problem to me, for many institutions where large groups of people consume (apartments/restraunts) dont have the opportunity to recycle; and I fear the continued apathetheic approach to throwing away reusable material will ultimately void desicions to do something about this problem in the first place. This will effect everyone, especially large scale as we already see in our oceans and natural environments, suffocating the niches within the many levels of life. San Marcos recycling policy should reflect similar implementations from the city of Austin.

Westbury schools are not receiving its fair share of funding. New York State voted for the Foundation Aid to raise only to 48.7%. Challenges faced in our district include rising enrollment, space constraints, additional resources for diverse learners and increased poverty. Funding is needed to maintain resources. We are asking for the aid gap to be shortened through “The Bullet and/or Categorical Aid” or any other aid funding source the state can provide. Without additional funding or with the current budget there will be significant cuts in our programs, staffing and extra curricular activities. This will have an impact on student achievement.