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Whether shining his eye on the rightwing media in Outfoxed, on corporate greed in Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, or on corrupt politicians in The Big Buy: Tom DeLay's Stolen Congress, Robert Greenwald uses the art of film to tell stories about way our society is being taken over by corporate greed.
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Increasing-Democracy
Cleaning up Pollution in Ports to Save Lives
Trucks carrying cheap imported goods are polluting the air and poisoning children who live near the ports where those goods enter the country. Addressing that problem, the California Assembly on Tuesday approved SB 974, sponsored by Sen. Alan Lowenthal who represents the Long Beach port area, which will impose a new fee on containers entering and leaving the ports to fund programs to alleviate that pollution.
The problem is stark. As the Coalition for Clean Air highlights:
- The Air Resources Board estimates that 3,700 Californians die prematurely each year due to pollution from the ports and freight transportation.
- Pollution leads to 360,000 sick days for workers and 1.1 million missed school days for children in California.
- Traffic congestion due to the ports imposes significant costs on the state economy.
Increasing-Democracy
Bills that Made a Difference in 2008
Even with many states having short sessions, the 2008 state legislative sessions have already had some impressive milestone victories for families and communities across the country. This Dispatch covers a few of the key issue victories this year -- and points out that states are still taking the lead on issue after issue. Most of the bills highlighted became law, while a few, falling short of final passage, were innovative enough and showed enough movement to promise greater things for 2009.
The list below is not exhaustive (we'll publish a more exhaustive list later in the year) and we'd be very interested in receiving additional nominations for key bills that were innovative and likely to impact politics both in your state and around the country. Send any additional 2008 successes nominations to dispatch[at]progressivestates.org.
Rewarding-Work
States Still Leading Feds on Minimum Wage
With food and gas prices rising rapidly, low-wage workers can at least welcome an increase in the federal minium wage to $6.55 per hour scheduled to go into effect on July 24th. Even better, a number of states will also be increasing their minimum wage rates even higher than the federal rate:
- $6.85 per hour in Nevada
- $7.15 in Pennsylvania (for smaller employers to match the rate already for large employers)
- $7.25 per hour in West Virginia and Illinois
- $7.40 per hour in Michigan
- $7.65 in the District of Columbia
- $7.25 per hour in Maine this October
Adding in states who have already raised their minimum wage, twenty-four states plus the Distrcit of Columbia, covering 59% of the U.S. population, will still have minimum rates above the federal rate. And even when the federal rate rises to $7.25 per hour next year, eleven states plus the D.C., covering 26% of the U.S. population, will still have a minimum wage rate higher than the federal level. Five states plus D.C. will have minimum wage rates of $8 per hour or more.
Increasing-Democracy
Session Roundups: RI, SC, KS, IL
Contentious sessions in Rhode Island, South Carolina, Kansas and Illinois were marked by veto showdowns with their respective governors and often stalemate on key issues even between chambers in those states.
Increasing-Democracy
Session Roundups: NH and TN, plus Special Sessions in NV, WV KY, and WI
Today's Dispatch details session roundups from New Hampshire and Tennessee, along with updates on the results of special sessions recently concluced in Kentucky, Nevada, West Virginia and Wisconsin to address budget shortfalls.
Increasing-Democracy
Supreme Court and the States: Business Wins, Voting Rights Lose, and a Mixed Bag on Criminal Justice
As the Supreme Court marches to the Right, corporate interests continue to thrive at the expense of state regulatory powers. “This has been a very successful year for the business community,” said Miguel Estrada, a Washington appellate lawyer who represents many key corporate interests before courts in Washington, D.C." This session at the U.S. Supreme Court, as this Dispatch will highlight, had an almost uniform tilt towards business versus state regulatory authority. In other areas like election law, the tilt was against poor voters who faced restrictions on their right to vote, though the term was a more mixed bag on criminal justice and other issues before the Court.
