March 10, 2016

Bernie Sanders powerfully resonates with new and young voters

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2016-03-09 Sanders CCRI 004 — Sanders table

That Bernie Sanders‘ presidential campaign motivates young voters is a given. They gave him the surprise victory in Michigan, after all, but to see the power of Sander’s campaign up close, even at a micro-scale, is revelatory. Sanders says he is leading a political revolution. Sometimes I actually find myself believing that.

I originally went to the Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI) in Warwick to ask local Bernie Sanders supporters about the surprising results of the Michigan primary the night before. That primary demonstrated the strong ground game Sanders has in this campaign. His supporters are devoted: they show up and they work hard.

Lauren Niedel, RI District 40’s Democratic State Committewoman and the RI State Contact for Bernie Sanders, lead a small team of Sanders campaigners at a voter registration drive held as part of a mock election at CCRI. (In the mock election, Sanders won 78 percent of the vote. See here.) A table next to theirs, reserved for Hillary Clinton supporters, was empty.

To attract attention to the mock election and generate a strong turnout for the voter registration drive, David Sears, president of student government at CCRI, invited representatives from the RI state Democratic and Republican Parties to attend. No Republican representatives could participate but RI State Democratic Party Chair Joseph McNamara (also a State Representative in the General Assembly) and Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea spoke to a crowd of around fifteen people for about twenty minutes.

Meanwhile, the Bernie Sanders table was nonstop action. Students were eager to register to vote, eager to take stickers and pins and actually were excited about this political campaign. The win in Michigan the night before had invigorated both the Sanders campaigners and the interested students. The video below shows the action at the Sanders table versus the action at the McNamara/Gorbea speeches.

Still, despite the Hillary campaign no-show and the general disinterest of students about anything but the Bernie Sanders table, Rep McNamara was a good sport, and stopped to take a picture with the cardboard Sanders stand-up for the Warwick Beacon, even though he plans to vote for Hillary.

By the way, when I got around to asking the Sanders campaigners about how they felt about the big upset in Michigan, I got the following responses.

Linda Ujifusa said, “When I saw 538 [Nate Silver‘s blog] I thought it was over. But it was awesome.”

“I was at the edge of my seat,” said Roland Gauvin, “I’m looking for a decisive win in Florida to show that Hillary doesn’t have the super-delegates wrapped up. We the people determine the election.”

Sally Mendzela told me that she “couldn’t be more excited” and Lauren Niedel just smiled and said, “It was great.”

March 10, 2016May 19, 2016

Community protests Care New England’s planned closure of Memorial Hospital Birthing Center

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Hundreds of people rallied outside Care New England offices in Providence this morning to demand that the Birthing Center at Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket stay open. Organized by the Coalition to Save Memorial Hospital Birthing Center, nurses, community members, mothers and “bucket babies” carried signs and were enthusiastically supported by passing motorists blaring their horns.

I spoke to Rita Brennan, a nurse at the Birthing Center and the president of UNAP Local 5082, representing the nurses there. Brennan says that the loss of the birthing center and the other units at the hospital Care New England plans to shut down will cost the state over 200 jobs.

Implementing the shut down and restructurings has been delayed due to the the intercession of the RI Department of Health (RIDOH), which pointed out that the closing was a breach of contract with the state.

RIDOH Director Nicole Alexander-Scott wrote, “Memorial Hospital is obligated to continue providing all existing services to patients. Memorial Hospital is not permitted, until the process is complete, to make any changes to the primary or emergency services currently offered, including maternal and delivery services.”

Next week there will be three public meetings to allow the public a chance to speak out on Care New England’s plan.

According to the Coalition, the dates, times, and locations of the public meetings organized by the Department of Health are:

March 14th: Goff Junior High School, 974 Newport Avenue, Pawtucket (use the Vine St. entrance); 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM

March 16th: Woodlawn Community Center, 210 West Avenue, Pawtucket; 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM

March 17th: Segue Institute for Learning, 325 Cowden Street, Central Falls (use the Hedley Ave. entrance); 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM

If you are unable to attend one of the public meetings in person, you can email comments to Paula.Pullano@health.ri.gov or mail them to: Rhode Island Department of Health, Center for Health Systems Policy and Regulation, 3 Capital Hill, Providence,RI 02908.

Comments will be accepted through March 25th. Comments can be submitted or shared anonymously. Although all comments from the public will be documented and considered carefully, the Department of Health will not be able to respond directly to any comments that are submitted or voiced.

2016-03-10 Memorial Birthing Center 028 — Rita Brennan

March 10, 2016March 10, 2016

CVS supports Cicilline’s Equality Act

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CVS, one of Rhode Island’s largest employer and best-known national brands, is taking a stand against LGBT discrimination.

The pharmacy/drug store chain is the latest corporate backer of Congressman David Cicilline’s Equality Act bill that would extend Civil Rights protections to gay, lesbian and transgender Americans.

“As a leading health care company, we are proud to endorse the Equality Act and stand with Congressman Cicilline in this effort,” said David Casey, a vice president at CVS Health.

“We have long supported efforts to improve the lives of LGBT Americans by advocating for equal rights and embracing the rich diversity of our colleagues, customers and suppliers,” Casey said. “It is part of our culture to make every individual feel equally valued, respected and appreciated. We will continue to advance our efforts to promote a diverse workforce and recognize that a workplace that embraces diversity and inclusion is good for business, helps attract and retain talent and enables us to fulfill our purpose of helping all people on their path to better health.”

CVS joins 60 other of America’s biggest companies in supporting the legislation. The companies include: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, Coca-Cola, Hewlitt-Packart, IBM, Nike and Monsanto, according to a list provided by Cicilline.

“The companies backing the Equality Act have operations in all 50 states, bring in a combined $1.9 trillion in revenue, and provide 4.2 million jobs in the United States,” said Cicilline spokesman Richard Luchette. “They are providing critical leadership to help expand support for the Equality Act and build momentum to ensure that LGBT Americans can enjoy the same rights and opportunities as everyone else.”

Cicilline introduced the Equality Act in July. It’s intended to extend Civil Rights protections to LGBTQ Americans by explicitly outlawing discrimination in public accommodations, housing, employment and federal funding. In more than half of the states it is legal to discriminate against someone based on their sexual orientation, and deny them services, employment, or housing.

Nothing would change at CVS if and when the Equality Act becomes law, said company spokesman Joseph Goode.

“From a CVS Health ‘workplace’ perspective, the Equality Act wouldn’t change anything. In fact, our employee values, policies and benefits are quite ahead of the curve when it comes to supporting LGBT equality,” he said. “There is, however, a ‘community’ upside to the Equality Act for our LGBT employees as the legislation aims to extend anti-discrimination protections to LGBT individuals in public accommodations, such as housing, employment, federal funding, education, credit, etc.”

CVS made international news and won the praise of First Lady Michelle Obama when it announced in 2014 it would stop selling tobacco products. Today CVS also announced it would invest $50 million in an anti-smoking ad campaign, according to Fortune. In November, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation gave CVS a perfect score on its Equality Index for the second year in a row in 2015. CVS offers employees “health insurance coverage for the medically necessary health care services that transgender people need, including transition-related treatment,” according to a news release.

“Today, in most states, an LGBT person can get married on Saturday, post photos of their wedding on Sunday, and then get fired from their job or thrown out of their apartment on Monday just because of who they are,” said Cicilline. “This is completely wrong. Fairness and equality are core American values, and it’s time we affirm these values by passing the Equality Act into law. I want to thank CVS Health, one of Rhode Island’s leading job creators, for standing with us in this fight today.”

March 10, 2016

Increasing Rhode Island’s minimum wage and expanding the state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) boosts the economy, helps thousands of Ocean State families

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The Governor’s Budget Article 13 increases the minimum wage to $10.10 next year and expands the state earned income tax credit from 12.5 percent to 15 percent of the federal credit (the Governor indicated an interest in further expanding the EITC pending available resources following the mid-year revenue forecast). Senator Goldin and Representative Slater have each introduced bills ((S 2156 and H 7347, respectively) to further increase the EITC to 20 percent of the federal credit. Lawmakers have made real progress in these two areas over the past two years and we are pleased to see a commitment to raising the labor and living standards of our workers going forward.

These two measures are particularly important in light of the persistent decline in Rhode Island’s low wages since 2000, and the gap between low wages in Rhode Island and those in Connecticut and Massachusetts, evident in Figure 1.

Research shows that coupling an EITC increase with an increase in the minimum wage has a greater impact on reducing poverty than either does on its own. This finding contradicts those who point to one approach as superior to the other in helping low-wage workers make ends meet. Both, together, have maximum beneficial impact. Using these policies together also requires that businesses and our government both play key roles in boosting incomes for workers in low-wage sectors, which is both fair and practical.

Today, minimum wage workers do not earn enough to meet basic needs. The Rhode Island Standard of Need, a study that documents the cost of living in the Ocean State, shows that a single adult needed to earn $11.86 per hour in order to meet his or her most basic needs in 2014.

As seen in Table 1, Rhode Island currently significantly lags its neighbors, Massachusetts and Connecticut, in the size of state EITC, and will fall behind Connecticut (and even further behind Massachusetts) for the minimum wage, unless the Rhode Island minimum is increased to at least $10.10 in 2017. Both of our neighboring states have steadily increased their minimum wages in recent years.

EITC filers pay payroll taxes, sales and property taxes, the car tax, gas tax. Even with the increase in the state EITC to 12.5%, Rhode Island still has one of the highest effective tax rates on low-income households, when looking at the combined state and local taxes – 7th highest among all states. The EITC is the best way to provide some targeted tax relief to those who need it most.

Compared to our neighboring states, families in the bottom quintile (bottom 20 percent of family income) pay 12.4 percent of their income in state and local taxes, compared with 10.0 percent in Massachusetts, and 10.6 percent in Connecticut. Increasing the RI EITC helps close this gap modestly – a 15 percent EITC in Rhode Island would lower bottom quintile taxes to 12.2 percent, and a 20 percent EITC would lower it to 12.0 percent, according to recent analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, evident in Figure 2. (Higher sales and excise taxes in RI account for much of the current gap).

Putting more money in the pockets of workers will also put more money in the cash registers of local businesses. Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would put nearly $27 million in the pockets of 78,000 Rhode Island workers in low-wage jobs, money that would flow quickly into the local economy.

Raising the minimum wage and the EITC are important steps that lawmakers can take to help ensure that workers are able to keep their heads above water in the Ocean State, and to keep the Rhode Island economy on a path to full economic recovery.