Advocacy-Public Policy Update Eastern Edition

On March 3, President Obama asked both Houses of Congress to finish their work and schedule a vote in the next few weeks. Essentially what he has said is the reconciliation process will be used to finalize a health care bill. In order to proceed, the House would have to first pass the Senate-passed health bill. Then both chambers would use reconciliation to pass a package of changes that would bridge gaps between the initial House and Senate versions. The final bill language would then be sent to the Congressional Budget Office for evaluation and scoring.

On Wednesday, February 24, 2010 Eastern Regional Director Rick Berg, Vice President Rebecca Kim Jordan and Public Policy Director Rachel Laforest traveled to Albany to participate in a state-wide advocacy day for the arts.

Actors' Equity is urging its members to call the White House to urge President Obama to use his executive power to appoint Craig Becker and Mark Pearce to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) during the Presidents Day recess.

Equity extends a huge “thank you!” to those members who participated in emailing support letters to Health Commissioner Richard Daine. Those letters urged him to think of the needs of the community St Vincent’s serves as the Department of Health finalized restructuring plans.

The effort has paid off! While not fully out of the woods, the attention to the issue has given rise to renewed commitment to save St Vincent’s. Union employees, community leaders, elected officials, financial institutions and private donors have stepped forward to lend a hand.

For an up-dated article on the state of the Save St Vincent’s campaign, click here

In these difficult economic times, the arts have been taking a hit in almost every proposed state budget throughout the country. Pennsylvania has been no exception. The cuts proposed by Governor Rendell in December have come to fruition through a budget freeze.

In Philadelphia however, the center of the theatre industry in Pennsylvania, the picture appears a little less bleak. The letter below was sent by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. While maintaining level arts funding in Philly is not a guarantee, they seem to be on a solid path toward doing so.

March 3, 2010

It's beginning to look a lot like spring, and the budget season for Philadelphia is in full swing. Today, Mayor Nutter took to the podium in a packed City Council meeting to offer his Fiscal Year 2011 budget address amidst a still tough economy and lower-than-projected tax revenue. The Mayor's biggest objective was made clear at several points throughout the address - maintaining essential services for Philadelphia citizens without taking a slash-and-burn approach at cutting programs or increasing the city's major taxes.

The two biggest proposals in his budget plan are geared to bring in the revenue are needed to close a $150 million gap -

A "Healthy Philly Initiative" 2-cent-per-ounce sweet-drink tax (40 cents on a 20-ounce bottle of soda). The levy would cover fountain-drink syrups and powders, based on the number of liquid ounces produced. Diet drinks without added sugar and baby formula would be excluded. The new tax is expected to raise $77 million annually.
A "Keep Philly Clean" fee on city trash collection - roughly $5.77 a week or $300 a year for property owners that would be placed on residents' real estate tax bill. Some low-income households would qualify to pay a $200 fee instead. This fee would be effective July 1 and is expected to bring in $108 million annually.

As it stands, allocations for all arts and cultural items maintained level funding for fiscal year 2011. The Mayor pledged that all library branches would remain open, and all fully functioning city pools (59 of 62) would be open this summer. This is great news - but these plans depend on the passage of the Mayor's aforementioned revenue proposals.

All the latest on the Fiscal Year 2011 budget, including the full text of the proposal and more details on the new initiatives is located on the city website http://www.phila.gov/budgetupdate/.

The Cultural Alliance will continue to keep you posted on the city budget and ways to take action.

Thanks for all that you do!

Sara Cederberg
Grassroots Advocacy Coordinator

NJ Marriage Equality
On Thursday, January 7th, the NJ Legislature voted against their bill on Marriage Equality. This particular vote was the culmination of a 2 and ½ month battle (though clearly the issue has been on the table for quite some time) between gay-rights advocates and their opponents.

It began with the commitment of out-going Governor Jon Corzine to sign the bill, if passed by both chambers of the state legislature, before his term expired on January 19th. After that point, the bill would go to in-coming Governor Chris Christie, an opponent of marriage equality who had vowed he would not sign it.

The Judiciary Cmt in the NJ General Assembly met on Jan 5th and did not take up the Marriage Equality proposal. This was 2 weeks after it had been stalled in the Senate. Many elected officials stated they feared going on record in favor of what they considered "a controversial issue that would be defeated anyway".

Gay and Civil rights advocates in New Jersey are regrouping to launch a new initiative that pairs individual legal cases and general education around the issue in order to set the stage for reintroducing legislation at a later date. It is likely we will see the same happen in New York.

On Wednesday, December 2nd the New York State Senate decisively rejected a bill that would have allowed gay couples to wed. The final vote was 24-38. Eight Democrats voted "no". Although there is huge disappointment and frustration, it is a step forward for our democratic process in New York that a debate and vote have now occurred. Now we know where we stand, and where we need to concentrate our efforts in the future.

We thank Governor Paterson for his support. We thank each of the Senators who pushed for a vote and stood firm when it was time to be counted and we thank the members of the New York State Assembly-led by Speaker Sheldon Silver and Assemblymember Daniel O'Donnell-who have three times now voted for marriage equality by increasingly bipartisan majorities.