Citizen Action Weekend E Newsletter, June 23rd – 25th
Citizen Action is hiring Deep Canvass Field Organizers in Eau Claire, Green Bay, and Milwaukee. For more information contact Priscilla Bort at [email protected]
Citizen Action, Advocacy Groups, & Unions Call on Governor Evers to Use Veto to Force BadgerCare Expansion on to the Table.
15 advocacy groups and unions sent a letter earlier today to Governor Evers urging him to deploy his vast veto powers to force the Legislature to negotiate over BadgerCare Expansion.
The letter does not call on Evers to veto the entire budget, or the entire Medicaid section, but to make strategic use of his sweeping veto powers to deny the majority its top priorities until they will have a good faith negotiation over this issue.
The letter points out that over the last decade Wisconsin has become an outlier as state after state has accepted the Medicaid Expansion money provided under the Affordable Care Act. As a result, about 90,000 are denied access to affordable health care, and with the unwinding of the public health emergency the disruption of health care access may be even larger.
The toll on Wisconsinites struggling to secure access to health care is detailed in the letter:
“The coverage gap affects people from every walk of life and every region and every legislative district of the state, but it disproportionately impacts people of color and women who have lower incomes are more likely to work in jobs which do not provide good employer-based coverage.
The coverage gap is forcing many Wisconsinites to choose between health care coverage and work. As the Joint Finance Committee heard in testimony during their regional public hearings, many with chronic conditions are choosing to impoverish themselves to gain access to health care. Child care workers and home care workers turning down hours in fields with critical workforce shortages. In some cases people are forced to divorce their spouses in order to qualify themselves for BadgerCare. People who are diagnosed with chronic and life threatening conditions such as cancer who are unable to work are forced to impoverish themselves to get access to treatment.”
The advocacy groups and unions signing on to the letter are as follows:
- Citizen Action of Wisconsin
- Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice
- WISDOM
- WEAC
- Kids Forward
- Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association
- Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools
- Madison-area Urban Ministry, Inc. DBA JustDane
- AFT-W Local 4848
- AFT Local 212
- Milwaukee Turners
- 9to5 Wisconsin
- Lake Edge United Church of Christ
- Wisconsin Physicians for a National Health Plan
- Our Wisconsin Revolution
- Souls to the Polls
Milwaukee Climate & Economic Equity plan passes City Council 13-0 after 4 year campaign!
This Tuesday the Milwaukee Common Council voted 13-0, with 1 abstention to pass the Milwaukee Climate and Economic Equity plan. The world is on a short deadline to dramatically cut carbon emissions, or face genocidal consequences. We must cut emissions nearly in half by 2030 and even more in subsequent decades to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. The Milwaukee Climate and Economic Equity Plan is the first major step to Milwaukee meeting its commitments to rapidly reduce carbon emissions.
The historic plan will restore economic opportunity to Milwaukee and dramatically reduce race-based economic inequality in income and employment by using the climate transition to create large numbers of family-supporting green union jobs. See more in the column published by Urban Milwaukee by Citizen Action’s Robert Kraig & Rafael Smith.
The Milwaukee Climate and Equity Plan was intentionally designed to create living wage green jobs and to target the opportunities for low income people of color communities who have been left out, dramatically reducing racial inequality.
Listen to the excellent National Public Radio “On Point” show this week discussing the historic plan.
VOLUNTEER with Citizen Action Thursday, June 29th, 3pm, making calls to voters about expanding BadgerCare in the State Budget!
Citizen Action of Wisconsin at Juneteenth Day
Citizen Action was at Juneteenth celebrations across the state this Monday. In Milwaukee, North Side Rising had a busy booth at the historic and crowded event on MLK Jr. Dr advocating for BadgerCare expansion, Good Green Jobs in MKE and fighting against high energy costs.
At Eau Claire’s 23rd annual event, Citizen Action members from the Northwestern Organizing Cooperative spoke with attendees about BadgerCare Expansion and other opportunities to get involved in organizing for a more just and equitable community.
Save the Bus! March and Rally for Safe and Fully Funded Milwaukee Public Transit, Monday, June 26, 3:00 PM
Milwaukee County Transit is projecting $2 million in cuts. Let’s send the County a message that our communities need well-funded public transportation! With rising gas prices, traffic and the looming climate crisis, we need public transit now more than ever. We need to expand public transit, not cut.
Citizen Action in the News
Citizen Action’s Robert Kraig and Rafael Smith penned a column for Urban Milwaukee that puts the historic Milwaukee Climate and Economic Equity plan in perspective, explaining how it is a generational opportunity to restore economic and racial equality to Milwaukee after 40 years of corporate outsourcing and deindustrialization.
WTMJ4 (NBC) Milwaukee came to Citizen Action’s Milwaukee office this week to film a feature story on Citizen Action organizer Valerie Ricks, who is connecting the Milwaukee Climate and Equity Plan’s complete streets proposal to reckless driving. The plan would redesign streets designed only to advantage cars over bikes, pedestrians, and rapid transit.
Read and watch the story here.
Listen to “Radical Solidarity” Battleground Wisconsin Podcast
We are joined by State Representative Kristina Shelton to discuss the state budget battle in Madison and why she voted in “radical solidarity” against the structurally racist Shared Revenue-Education deal. In more positive news, we look beyond the state budget and discuss Rep. Shelton’s vitally important BadgerCare Public Option bill that will be reintroduced in the Legislature later this year and should be the centerpiece of the Democratic Party’s 2024 election agenda. In a major breakthrough for climate change and racial economic equity, the Milwaukee Climate and Economic Equity Plan passed the City Council this week and will be signed by the mayor on Friday. We discuss the potential to spread the transformational planning to other Wisconsin cities. We close with a discussion of the growing rift within the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conservative wing and the opportunity it presents the new Court for a more democratic and transparent Supreme Court.
Listen to the show!
Join a Citizen Action Organizing Cooperative near you!
Donate to Citizen Action.
Social Media Post of the Week
