feministmajority

[feministmajority]

The Feminist Majority Foundation stands with the 800,000 Dreamers who have built lives here in the United States and contribute to our communities every day. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced for the Trump Administration that it has rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which – even with time for Congress to act – fundamentally uproots the lives of millions of people, disrupts our communities, and potentially ends the dreams of DACA recipients, many of whom were finally able to pursue educational opportunities, start careers, and live their lives freely and in the open. By stripping DACA protections, Trump has made undocumented women even more vulnerable to violence, discrimination, trafficking, and abuse.

We must pressure Congress immediately to act and to stop the heartless and mean-spirited rescission of DACA. The Feminist Majority Foundation will do all we can, in solidarity with Dreamers and immigrant rights advocates, to help ensure that Dreamers continue to have the protections guaranteed to them by DACA. Together, we will resist the rising tide of white supremacy that the administration panders to and defend the safety and security of all, regardless of immigration status, race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, and/or sexual orientation.

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MEDIA CONTACTS

Washington, DC Office: 

Erin Gistaro 703.522.2214 Email Erin Gistaro

Los Angeles, CA Office:

Susie Gilligan 310.556.2500 Email Susie Gilligan

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A disturbing statistic has become a major talking point in Texas political campaigns this election cycle. From state house races to the fight for Ted Cruz’s senate seat, candidates are making maternal mortality a component of every healthcare discussion, and it’s a conversation that’s seriously needed. Between 2010 and 2012, Texas’s maternal mortality rate nearly doubled to 35.8 per 100,000 births, passing every other state and many developed countries, and practically nothing has been done to address the crisis since.

  The statistic comes from a September 2016 report examining United States maternal mortality rates from 2000-2014 by the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, and the authors noted an unusual abnormality when it came to Texas. They found that the Texas maternal mortality rate increased modestly from 2000-2010 before nearly doubling over a 2-year period. This increase could not be explained by changes in reporting; there were no natural disasters, no severe economic stresses, and no other major factors that could easily explain this change.

  The doubling of Texas’s maternal mortality rate coincided with the legislature’s passage of destructive anti-women legislation that has dramatically decreased access to reproductive health care in the state.  The first wave of legislation began in 2011 when Texas cut funding to state family planning initiatives from $111 million to $37.9 million. In addition, the Texas legislature voted to violate federal law and exclude Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from receiving federal funding from the Medicaid Women’s Health Program. When the state refused to comply with federal law, the Obama administration was forced to revoke the state’s federal Medicaid funding for family planning, leading to an even greater reduction in resources.

  Since then, 82 clinics have ended their family planning services or been forced to close completely. Before the 2011 votes, Planned Parenthood’s 81 clinics provided care to over 40% of women in the Medicaid Women’s Health program; they are now down to only 35 clinics, only five of which provide abortion care, leaving many rural Texas communities and Texans of color vulnerable.

  Texas’s state funded healthcare program for low-income women has changed names three times in the last six years, from the Medicaid Women’s Health Program to the Texas Women’s Health Program to the Healthy Texas Women program. Each name change corresponds with increasing numbers of closed clinics and decreased numbers of women in the program who actually receive health care. In 2016, 1 in 4 of the women enrolled in the Texas Women’s Health/Healthy Texas Women program did not receive care from any provider; when Planned Parenthood and other family planning clinics were part of the program, only 1 in 10 women enrolled did not receive care. Furthermore, the number of women receiving contraceptives through this program has decreased by 41% since 2011.

  Texas claims that they are working to address the destruction of women’s health and family planning programs that has coincided with the disturbingly high maternal mortality rate, but their actions have proved otherwise. In 2013, the Texas state legislature established the Maternal Mortality Task Force. This Task Force released their first report in July 2016, which focuses on the 189 maternal mortality deaths that occurred in 2011-2012 and reveals several concerning facts.

  First, the Task Force found that black women disproportionately die from pregnancy-related causes – black women suffered 28.4% of the state’s maternal deaths but accounted for only 11.4% of all births. The Task Force determined that the top three causes of maternal mortalities were cardiac events, overdose by prescription drugs, and hypertensive disorders, respectively. 60% of the deaths occurred past the 42nd day after delivery, displaying the importance of continuity of care.

  In their report, the Maternal Mortality Task Force also provided several policy and education recommendations. One of their recommendations was to increase access to health services during the year after delivery and between pregnancies in order to improve continuity of care. They hoped that this increased access would promote safe birth spacing and reduce maternal morbidity. Ultimately, this increased access would reduce the cost of care for Medicaid patients as less risky births cost less money. Another recommendation was to increase provider and community awareness of healthcare disparities and develop programs that give more women the ability to self-advocate.

  The Task Force’s recommendations provide clear steps for working towards the solution to the maternal mortality crisis in Texas. However, the Texas legislature, in its most recent session, appears to have completely ignored these recommendations and, in fact, has passed bills that could make the problem worse by increasing unintended pregnancies. Texas’s recent legislation involves abortion restrictions. These bills include a requirement for the burial or cremation of fetal remains and a ban on “dilation and evacuation” procedures, effectively banning abortion after the first trimester. In addition, a new state law restricts insurance coverage of abortions and mandates that women have to buy supplemental insurance if they think they might ever want or need an abortion procedure.

    Texas’s refusal to comply with federal law and fund Planned Parenthood providers also goes against the Task Force’s recommendations. Texas has the highest birth rate in the United States, and Medicaid pays for more than half of all births in the state. By cutting out Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from Texas’s health program for low-income women, legislators have denied the state funding for crucial services and shown that they are not serious about address the disparity in maternal health care. Texas is now asking the Trump administration to excuse the state’s violation of federal law and reinstate Medicaid funding nonetheless, which could set a dangerous precedent for other states who want to defund clinics that offer abortion services.

  The state government has repeatedly claimed that women’s health clinics that are not abortion providers can replace the hole left by the 82 clinic closures. Some of these clinics are crisis pregnancy centers that explicitly oppose abortions, while others are community health centers that, presumably, do good work. However, the massive numbers of patients left without any providers have frequently overwhelmed these community health centers. For example, when the Midland and Odessa Planned Parenthoods closed in 2013, Midland Community Health Services (MCHS) became the main healthcare provider to lower income Midland residents and received over 6,000 patient charts from Planned Parenthood. Michael Austin, director of MCHS, said that their clinics would most likely be unable to fill the hole left by Planned Parenthood closures. Austin said: “We only have one full-time OB/GYN and one mid-level nurse practitioner with a specialization in women’s health and that’s it.” He continued on to say that MCHS had hired another OBGYN but “let’s face it, [Planned Parenthood] was running two full-time clinics here in the area [Midland and Odessa] and when it goes out of circulation, man, that’s a lot for basically one doc to absorb. So we can only do so much.”

    Texas’s attempts to replace Planned Parenthood and other large-capacity providers by funding other women’s health clinics have largely failed. For example, in 2016, Texas gave $1.6 million, nearly 10% of Healthy Texas Women’s $18 million budget, to the Heidi Group, a Christian anti-abortion organization led by Carol Everett. Everett is a long-time anti-abortion activist who is opposed to abortion even in cases of rape. When the Heidi Group received its $1.6 million, Everett claimed that the organization would no longer be strictly anti-abortion: “We tell the truth about abortion. We tell [patients] about adoption and parenting, we give all the options.” Since Everett’s “truth about abortion” includes her belief that abortion causes breast cancer (which has been scientifically disproven), we should all be concerned about the “truths” that the Heidi Group is telling their patients.

  By March 2017, the Heidi Group had little evidence of actually increasing health care access for low-income women. Everett had originally proposed helping two dozen small clinics serve 50,000 women in a year, a patient load that would overwhelm these clinics’ small facilities. Within eight months of receiving $1.6 million, the Heidi Group has not fulfilled any of their initial plans such as helping clinics promote themselves on Facebook, airing public service announcements, ensuring all clinics have updated websites, and establishing a 1-800 number to help women find providers. When asked about the Heidi Group’s failure to meet their goals, Everett blamed the clinics, saying “We worked on one Facebook site for three months and they didn’t want to do it. And we worked on websites and they didn’t want to do it. […] We can’t force them. We’re not forcing them.”

  Meanwhile, in one year, Planned Parenthood served 126,000 patients in their 35 remaining Texas clinics with absolutely zero funding from Medicaid or the state of Texas, relying on private insurance plans, out-of-pocket payments, grants and donations.

  The Heidi Group’s lack of success should not be surprising. The organization is best known for promoting alternatives to abortion and did not practice patient care prior to 2016. Everett lacks clinical experience and is not a healthcare provider. The clinics the Heidi Group supposedly were helping and giving money to included crisis pregnancy centers and organizations that only recently started providing gynecologic and obstetric care. On the organization’s website, the pregnancy/infant loss page is still under construction.

  The fact that the Texas government gave nearly 10% of the Healthy Texas Women program’s budget to the Heidi Group should be shocking. However, it matches up with a long stream of irresponsible decisions that the government has made about women’s health. At least now, the Heidi Group’s funding has been cut. After receiving $1.6 million in August 2016 and an additional $5.1 million in January for family planning services, the Heidi Group is losing $4.1 million of that funding. This money will now be redistributed to other providers that, hopefully, will actually provide health care.

  Before the Texas legislature’s special session in July, the Maternal Mortality Task Force was in danger of ending in 2019 before the next state legislative session. Three bills were passed that extended the Task Force to 2023, gave instructions for future reports, and assigned specific topics to investigate including what other states are doing to combat maternal mortality and why a disproportionate number of African American women are dying.

  The extension allows for more research on the spike in Texas’s maternal mortality. However, this research is futile if the Texas legislature continues to pass more laws that are anti-choice and anti-women, and allocates its resources to useless organizations. Texas, like the rest of the United States, has a primary care shortage, and women in rural Texas are disproportionately affected by the decreased healthcare access. It should be obvious that closing family planning clinics like Planned Parenthood will not help solve the problem. Texas cannot possibly hope to improve its maternal mortality rate if the government continues to ignore the needs of Texas communities and promotes anti-abortion, anti-women policies.

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We at the Feminist Majority have watched with heavy hearts the events that have unfolded over the last week, first in Charlottesville, and then in the President’s shameful and dangerous response, especially at Tuesday’s press conference. Words matter, so I wanted to share a few of my own.

The people of all genders, ages, races and backgrounds who turned out on Saturday to defend civil rights and condemn the KKK, neo-Nazis and white nationalists are heroes. They did not deserve to be attacked, and they certainly did not deserve to be vilified by the President who falsely equated their message of social justice with that of white supremacists.

I got my start in social justice fighting against segregation as a college student in North Carolina. I never thought in 2017 that I would still have to fight racism in its ugliest, most-naked form.

As we witnessed this weekend’s deadly display of hatred from white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the KKK, my mind went to the millions of people who have been killed, injured, disenfranchised and discarded in the name of these vile ideologies, both in the United States and around the world.

Today they want to call themselves the “alt-right,” but their dangerous movement of domestic terrorism could never be rebranded. Protecting the statue of Robert E. Lee was secondary to their stated goals of uniting the right, bringing together many confirmed hate groups from across the country, and displaying a show of force in real life, off of the internet. There were not “fine people” marching with the neo-Nazis, KKK and white supremacists under their banners, chanting their slogans and brandishing their weapons. We all see them for who they are; anyone who doesn’t is employing willful ignorance.

This brings me to President Trump, a man who rose to prominence in the business and political world by advocating racist and violent tactics that bring out the very worst of our society. He has emboldened white supremacists—they say so themselves.

I am disappointed and sad for my country, and honestly, I am shocked by the magnitude at which this extreme hate has contaminated our politics. Trump has placed leaders of the “alt-right” in some of the highest ranking positions of his administration—including Stephen Miller, Sebastian Gorka and Steve Bannon.

To all of the Republicans who have expressed disappointment and disgust in the President’s response: I urge you to look at his policies and seriously question if they are rooted in the promotion of white supremacy. From his Muslim ban, to his border wall, to his dismantling of federal civil rights offices, Trump has shown his determination to attack progress. Republicans cannot continue apologizing for and enabling him without accepting their responsibility to take action.

It will take the heart and soul of the entire country to counter the damage that President Trump has done, and to make clear to white supremacists that momentum is not on their side, society will not tolerate their hate, and the voters will not support their leaders.

This is a call to action. We all need to recommit ourselves to making sure we speak out against racism in all of its forms. The world is watching.

Click here to view a list of actions you can take to fight back against racism and bigotry.

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Demand President Trump fire Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka. Sign the petition from the Leadership Conference, a coalition of civil and human rights organizations the Feminist Majority has proudly been a member of for many years.

Sign the petition to take down Confederate monuments. Color of Change’s campaign seeks to remove Confederate symbols of hate and oppression that are scattered throughout our nation’s schools, parks, capitol buildings and other public places.

Join a solidarity event near you. Check out Indivisible’s event guide and attend a local event to show that you’re standing with Charlottesville.

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A statement by Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal on the domestic terrorism carried out this weekend by the white supremacist movement.

This weekend, in Charlottesville and Seattle, our county witnessed a dangerous and deadly display of hatred from white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK, all under the banner of the so-called alt-right. We watched as dozens were injured, some critically, and one brave defender of civil rights, Heather Heyer, was murdered. We cannot forget about the millions of people who have been killed and injured in the name of this vile ideology. That’s why we must confront this dangerous movement of domestic terrorism.

These white nationalists have been emboldened by the election of Donald Trump; they proudly say so themselves.  It took 48-hours for President Trump to condemn white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the KKK, but he has yet to denounce their support for his leadership, or condemn the so-called alt-right movement, members of which currently serve in prominent positions of his administration. It is disturbing to say the least and unmasks the intolerant reality of too much of his legislative agenda.

The tragedy of this weekend, and the president’s weak response, has made us as determined as ever to fight back against his bigotry and attacks on progress, from the dismantling of federal civil rights offices, to his racist immigration plan, to his assault on women’s rights and LGBTQ rights. Feminists will not go back; we will fight back in the spirit of nonviolent resistance.

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Betsy DeVos, the current Secretary of Education in the Trump administration, has long lauded the virtues of school voucher programs. These programs funnel taxpayer dollars away from public schools and towards subsidies that parents can use to provide their child with a private, charter, or homeschool education instead of a traditional public education.

The Obama administration steadfastly opposed school voucher programs on the grounds that there was not enough evidence proving their efficacy and that the Department of Education lacked the resources necessary to properly oversee these programs. But Trump and DeVos have indicated that there will be a stark change in federal policy regarding school vouchers; the proposed federal education budget for 2017 would put 1.4 billion dollars towards expanding school voucher programs, paid for with deep cuts to traditional public education.

DeVos and other Republican legislators hold that voucher programs will promote educational achievement among recipients – DeVos has even gone so far as to call those who question the effectiveness of voucher programs “Flat-Earthers,” or deniers of science. However, a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute found no significant evidence that voucher programs increase academic achievement among students. In some cases voucher schools may actually have a detrimental impact on educational outcomes; according to a report by the Brookings Institution, new attendees of voucher schools in Louisiana and Indiana experienced a drop in math and reading scores when compared with students who remained in public schools.

DeVos and other officials in the Trump administration argue that voucher programs serve as equalizers that allow low-income students, particularly students of color, to get the same quality education as their more well-off peers. DeVos has even said of legislators who oppose voucher programs, “They will be hurting the children and families who can least afford it. If politicians in a state block education choice, it means those politicians do not support equal opportunity for all kids.” But studies have shown that voucher programs actually leave the most vulnerable students behind. Private schools are not required to accept vouchers, and even those that do are still allowed to admit or reject students based on their own, often vague, guidelines. Although private schools must adhere to civil rights laws, which prohibit exclusion based on “race, color, national origin, or disability,” selective admissions processes could still leave the door open for discrimination.

In some school districts, this could mean that students with physical, learning or developmental disabilities are abandoned to a public education system drained of much of its funding. According to the Center for American Progress, private voucher schools are not required to make anything beyond “minor adjustments” to their programs to provide for the needs of students with disabilities. This means that these schools can choose not to admit students whose needs are deemed too extensive, and they can deny students educational and behavioral supports at any time. This sets a dangerous precedent, and could curtail efforts to give students with disabilities access to an equal education.

In addition, voucher schools are not always geographically or financially accessible to all. Many low-income and rural districts are far from any private voucher schools, so students in these areas have no option but to enroll in their often under-funded local public school. What’s more, the grants awarded by voucher schools are often not enough to cover the cost of tuition at prestigious private schools. This means that affluent students who can afford to pay the difference attend the best voucher schools, while low-income students attend less highly-regarded ones or remain in traditional public schools.

As a result, many voucher programs have high levels of white, suburban, middle-class enrollment. In Indiana’s statewide voucher program, voucher recipients are 60% white, up from 46% in 2013, and only 12% black, down from 24% in 2013. Only one percent of the students in Indiana voucher schools are enrolled through a pathway specifically designed to help students leave failing public schools; in fact, the majority of voucher recipients in Indiana have never attended public school at all. Clearly, the program largely serves to subsidize well-off students who would attend private schools anyway, not give low-income students a chance to earn a private education.

Voucher programs are particularly threatening to equal education for students of color. As the percentage of white students in U.S. public schools shrinks, the percentage of students of color grows, meaning that cuts to public education hit students of color the hardest. And according to a report from the Center for American Progress Action Fund, school voucher programs have racist origins—they were originally used to give white students the opportunity to attend private “segregation academies” when public school systems were shut down to resist integration. School voucher programs today are not instated with the explicit purpose of maintaining segregation. But a recent report by the Century Foundation (TCF) has concluded that, on average, school voucher programs are more likely to increase racial segregation in schools than to decrease it. In one program highlighted in the report, 90% of school transfers facilitated by vouchers increased school segregation in either the public or private schools involved. The authors of the report expressed concern that white families could use vouchers to opt out of more diverse public schools, increasing racial separation.

School voucher programs also, in the name of “choice” and “religious freedom,” allow federal funding to go to private religious schools, breaking down the separation of church and state. By the most recent estimates, Business Insider reports, 85% of voucher schools are religiously affiliated, and vouchers have provided a financial lifeline to many struggling religious schools at the expense of public schools. DeVos herself has asserted that her work in education reform will “advance God’s kingdom” – a worrying goal for an American public official, to say the least.

Allowing vouchers to go towards religious education finances some schools that discriminate against students for their sexual orientation or gender identity. In a moving op-ed for the Lily, Jaclyn Grimm, who identifies as bisexual and used to attend a Southern Baptist private school, describes how her religious school taught her that members of the LGBTQ+ community were sinners and abominations. Under no circumstances should the federal government be financially supporting schools that treat LGBTQ+ students as inferior.

School voucher programs could also allow federal funds to go towards private schools that segregate by gender. In 1975, Title IX prohibited gender-segregated education except when used as an affirmative action tool – for example, to encourage more girls to pursue careers in science and technology. But this provision was amended by the Bush administration in 2006 to allow gender-segregated education if it was shown to “improve the educational achievement” or “meet the particular, identified educational needs” of its students.

This more lenient standard has already paved the way for alarming growth in gender-segregated public education. According to the Feminist Majority Foundation, this form of education can perpetuate sex stereotyping and gender inequity because it is often founded on the premise that girls and boys have fundamentally different brains. DeVos’s school voucher plan could allow parents to put federal money towards schools that employ damaging gender stereotypes in the classroom and encourage children to conform to restrictive gender roles.

Proponents of voucher programs claim they give students the chance to escape “failing” public schools. But contrary to common Republican rhetoric, not all American public schools are failing. According to renowned educational psychologist David Berliner, well-funded public schools in affluent neighborhoods produce high-achieving students. Although schools in low-income neighborhoods are more likely to produce students who under perform on standardized tests, this is because they are significantly underfunded, not because such public schools are automatically doomed to fail. Since a significant amount of funding for public schools comes from local property taxes, schools in impoverished areas with low property values have less money to spend on education. For example, public schools in affluent Greenwich, CT spend an average of $6000 more per student every year than schools in nearby Bridgeport, a high-poverty area.

Studies have shown that increasing funding to public education improves student achievement, especially among economically-disadvantaged students. But the cuts to public education in the Trump budget would strip funds from before and after-school programs, efforts to reduce class sizes, and teacher training programs – all of which, unlike voucher programs, have been linked to better educational outcomes.

Secretary DeVos’s agenda exhibits a blatant disregard for the needs of students of color, female students, low income students, and students with disabilities. Expanding school voucher programs would jeopardize education equity in the United States. We at the Feminist Majority oppose any attempts to strip students of the chance to earn a quality, equal education.

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In the early morning hours of July 28, 2017 the U.S. Senate voted 51-49 against the skinny repeal of the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as the latest version of Trumpcare.

  Statement by Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority, on the temporary defeat of Trumpcare in the U.S. Senate:

  “This is an important and exciting day for everyone who has fought for the last six months, and the last seven years, to increase healthcare access to millions of people and defend the backbone of the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid and private health insurance coverage to millions of people—the majority of whom are women—who were previously uninsured, banned sex discrimination in pricing and benefits, and finally guaranteed women access to the essential healthcare services they rely on, like maternity care, birth control without co-pays or deductibles, and cancer screenings.

  The Feminist Majority wants to extend a genuine thanks to all the Senate Democrats and Independents who have fought the repeal of the ACA and the decimation of Medicaid from the beginning, as well as Republican Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski for listening to their constituents and voting against a bill that would have devastated healthcare in both the communities they represent and the entire country. These two leaders once again show that women, though under represented, have courage and make a difference in office.  And thank you to Republican Senator John McCain for recognizing that backdoor deal making undermines the democratic process and does not lead to sustainable solutions.

  None of this would have been possible without all of the feminist activists and constituents who organized, rallied, protested, marched, emailed, called and showed up for the fight. We demanded that our voices be heard, and it worked.

  The ability to access affordable and comprehensive healthcare is a right that every person in America deserves. Today, we are one step closer to affirming that, but the struggle goes on, and we must remain vigilant and determined to increase access to healthcare for all.”

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As of Thursday morning the Trumpcare debate playing out on the Senate floor is moving full steam ahead, with Republican plans changing by the hour. So far they have held a vote on both a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act and the Senate’s version of Trumpcare, officially known as the Better Care Reconciliation Act. Both have thankfully failed to garner enough votes.

Now they will move on to considering a number of Republican amendments. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Wednesday night that no Democrats would be offering any amendments, accusing the entire process thus far of being a sham and demanding that the debate be scrapped and both parties go back to the drawing board to craft an actual bi-partisan healthcare bill.

That is almost certain not to happen before the end of the week, as Majority Leader McConnell is dedicated to pushing through the rest of debate and holding votes on as many amendments as possible, trying desperately to summon 51 votes and craft a bill that complies with budget reconciliation rules. If the Senate Parliamentarian finds that a bill or amendment is intended to change policy as opposed to balance the budget, McConnell will have to either drop that provision or earn 60 votes in order for it to pass.

Right now, the strongest option on the table for Republicans appears to be what is called the “skinny repeal.” Dozens of amendments will be voted on before we know what this skinny bill will look like, but the plan will likely include a few of Republicans’ main goals in dismantling healthcare.

One of the top goals for the skinny repeal will be to end the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act that required all Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a tax penalty. Ending the individual mandate would likely lead to many young, healthy people opting out of insurance coverage and fleeing the marketplace, causing premiums to skyrocket.  Health insurance provider Blue Cross Blue Shield released a statement Wednesday saying that the skinny repeal would disastrously dismantle the insurance marketplace.

Another top goal is to repeal the employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act that requires all businesses with 50 or more employees to provide health insurance. Democrats point out that by ending both the employer and individual mandate, Republicans are essentially sabotaging the private insurance marketplace and financially barring these small business employees from then purchasing their own health insurance individually.

As always, the other top priority of Republicans has consistently been to defund Planned Parenthood. This would be done through language barring any women’s health organization as large as Planned Parenthood that offers abortion care services—of which there are no others—from receiving reimbursements for serving Medicaid patients.  The government is already barred from funding abortion care through the long-standing Hyde Amendment, so this provision would exclusively cut funding to birth control services, cancer screenings, pre-natal health programs and STD testing and treatment. While the Senate Parliamentarian announced late last week that defunding Planned Parenthood would not comply with budget reconciliation rules, it appears they are nonetheless moving forward with that plan.

Right now, as has been the case throughout this Trumpcare legislative process, it is unclear if all, part or none of the skinny repeal will pass the Senate. But even this trimmed down plan to dismantle healthcare would have a devastating impact on insurance premiums, small business employees and the millions of families who are now able to purchase health insurance for the first time through the individual marketplace.

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  On Tuesday, the Senate voted 50-50 on a motion to proceed to a debate on Trumpcare, forcing Vice President Mike Pence to come in and make the tie-breaking vote in favor of moving the bill forward. This means the rest of the week will be filled with debates on the floor, procedural votes, and offerings of amendments culminating in a vote on a final bill. At this time, we do not know exactly when that vote will take place, what the bill will look like or if it will pass.

Senator Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Senator Susan Collins (ME) broke from party lines on the motion to proceed vote, arguing that they could not vote to move forward on a bill they didn’t know anything about.

The truth is none of the Senators, save for maybe Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY), know what Trumpcare will end up consisting of. The entire process has unfolded in secret, quietly crafted by the special interest groups of the far-right and major corporations, with no committee hearings and no opportunities for Democrats to participate.

What we do know are the main Republican goals for this healthcare plan. First, they want to end the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act that required all Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a tax penalty. Ending the individual mandate would likely lead to many young, healthy people opting out of insurance coverage and fleeing the marketplace, causing premiums to skyrocket for those left enrolled.

Second, Republicans want to eliminate the Medicaid expansion, cut Medicaid funding by over $700 billion and re-structure the program so that each state would receive funding through either a block-grant or a per-capita cap. These cuts to Medicaid, which currently provides health insurance to 74 million people, would force states to either kick people off of coverage, limit the number of services available to recipients or most likely both. This would lead to the closure of hospitals and nursing homes, and flood emergency rooms with patients coming in with otherwise treatable conditions, forcing even higher co-pays onto the insured.

Third, GOP leadership intends to give an over $500 billion tax cut to the wealthiest Americans and corporations. One of the main reasons this bill is being forced through so quickly is so that there is enough money in the federal budget to fund those tax cuts when the 2018 fiscal year budget is crafted in September. As we know from past experience, if a budget doesn’t get passed by the end of September, the government shuts down, and Republican leadership is getting overwhelming pressure from their major donors to make sure those tax cuts are in the budget.

McConnell is trying to pass Trumpcare as a budget reconciliation bill—legislation that is meant to balance the budget not change policy—which allows him to force it through with only 51 votes as opposed to the 60 votes required for a typical policy bill. However, late last week the Senate Parliamentarian found that there are some much desired Republican provisions in Trumpcare that do not comply with budget reconciliation rules, including defunding Planned Parenthood, restricting abortion coverage in the private insurance market, and imposing a six-month insurance waiting period on people who have had a gap in coverage.

So far it is unclear what will happen. Multiple Republican Senators have amendments ready to introduce and McConnell has promised to offer monetary sweeteners to states who’s Republican Senators are on-the-edge. Still many are hoping to switch out Trumpcare with an actual bi-partisan bill that solves the short-coming of the Affordable Care Act by going back to the drawing board, crafting a plan in cooperation and bringing it through the committee process.

Democrats, insurance providers and healthcare advocacy groups all argue that there is currently nothing in the Trumpcare bill that would lower premiums or increase access to health insurance for most Americans. It is one of the most unpopular pieces of legislation in decades, and would force anywhere from 22-32 million people off of their health insurance. Yet the fire under Republicans to pass this bill continues to grow, both from the hard-right dead-set on destroying Obama’s greatest legislative accomplishment and the super-wealthy dead-set on stuffing their pockets by taking healthcare from the poor.

Contact your Senators and urge them to save healthcare here.

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A statement from Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority:

“The more things change, the more they stay the same. Trumpcare 3.0 is STILL inhumane and deadly.

The revised Senate Trumpcare plan—the Better Care Reconciliation Act—would still decimate Medicaid, using caps and cuts to end the program as we know it. This bill would rob tens of millions of coverage and deny women, children, seniors and people with disabilities access to critically-needed and often lifesaving care.

This cruel bill continues to be a direct assault on women’s health. Trumpcare still contains a provision to defund Planned Parenthood, barring millions of women from a legitimate healthcare provider that facilitates access to birth control, cancer screenings, and other health services. This bill would mean that patients in some underserved communities will be left without any healthcare provider at all.”

  A statement from Gaylynn Burroughs, director of policy and research at the Feminist Majority:

“What is new is in this terrible bill is a provision that will allow insurers to issue junk healthcare policies that lack patient protections, do not meet minimum federal standards, and offer bare-bones coverage . The Cruz-Lee Amendment, reviled even by insurance companies, would further destabilize the insurance market and cause premiums to rise, especially for people who need or want comprehensive insurance, including those with pre-existing conditions.

It is clear that the Trumpcare plan cannot be fixed. Republicans should listen to the majority of Americans who oppose their attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. We urge every Senator to oppose this cruel and dangerous bill and any other attempt to dismantle our healthcare system.”

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[feministmajority]

Billionaires are controlling the fate of our healthcare. This may not come as a surprise, knowing the entrenched history between large GOP donors and the party agenda, but this has gone too far. The politicians getting their pockets filled by billionaires are more concerned with what their donors—and potential future sponsors of political opponents—want than how their healthcare bill will devastate millions of people.

On June 27, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was forced to delay the vote on the Senate’s Better Care Reconciliation Act—or as we call it, Trumpcare—after not being able to summon the 50 votes needed to successfully push it through, and major GOP donors are not happy. That’s because in order to move on to their self-profiteering tax reform agenda, Republicans have to free up enough money in the federal budget to be able to afford to give massive tax breaks to the wealthy. That is exactly what Trumpcare offers by cutting nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid and the subsidies that made insurance in the marketplace more affordable for low- and middle-income workers. If this bill passes, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that at least 22 million people will be kicked off their current health insurance plan, and the 74 million people who rely on Medicaid will either be removed or have the healthcare services available to them dramatically reduced, all to give a $541 billion tax cut to the top 1 percent and major corporations.

Among the major donors pushing for the passage of this deadly bill, the billionaire Koch brothers—whose enterprises range from manufacturing to oil—sit on top, controlling the Republican Party and wielding their financial influence over the candidates they catapulted into office. The Koch brothers’ political network helped finance the rise of the Tea Party following the election of Barack Obama, and is now the powerhouse behind the GOP agenda. Their goals are two-fold: maintain and create tax loopholes for the super wealthy and limit government regulation on everything from the environment to labor to education.

These two billionaire brothers have had a hand in controlling the agenda for a long time. Since 1980, the Koch brothers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on political campaigns and conservative lobbyists, including the Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation. They also founded Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a conservative political advocacy group that lobbies for lower taxes and less government regulation, spending millions on campaign ads that oppose Democratic candidates and playing a key role in the movement to oppose labor unions. In the 2016 election cycle alone, the Koch brothers planned to spend close to $900 million, begrudgingly getting behind then-candidate Donald Trump.  And more recently, the brothers announced on June 24 that they plan to allocate between $300 and $400 million to promoting candidates favorable to them during the 2018 political cycle in response to Democrats battling to regain control of the House.

During a weekend donor retreat just before the July 4th Senate recess, the Koch brothers warned elected officials that time is running out to push their agenda through Congress. While they and other major donors are angry that the Senate is not done with healthcare, they are dissatisfied with the current version of Trumpcare, voicing sharp criticism that it does not go far enough in repealing the Affordable Care Act, ending Medicaid as we know it, and handing unbelievable profits and discriminatory power back to the insurance companies.

Doug Deason, son of billionaire Darwin Deason and a giant donor out of Dallas, Texas, warned Republican lawmakers that the “Dallas piggy bank” was closed until a bill was pushed through. He stated, “Get Obamacare repealed and replaced, get tax reform passed. You control the Senate. You control the House. You have the presidency. There’s no reason you can’t get this done. Get it done and we’ll open it back up.” He and the other donors want the outcome that they paid for before 2018 comes and they run the risk of losing control of their Congress.

In the absence of a replacement plan that satisfies the billionaire donors, the Koch brothers made a pointed recommendation to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement, a move that would catapult the number of people set to lose their health insurance to 32 million.  The Freedom Partners, a Koch-backed conservative group, first offered up the proposal in January, saying, “The best way to provide relief to Americans suffering under Obamacare has always been to fully repeal Obamacare and work together to fix our broken health care system.” They floated the idea again during the June retreat to Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska. Reportedly, Sasse then proposed the idea to President Trump, who ended up Tweeting his endorsement of the plan on June 30, seemingly with no notice to McConnell or other members of Republican leadership.

Nathan Nascimiento, Freedom Partners’ vice president said, “While we are continuing to work with the Senate to help improve their current legislation, the two-step repeal and reform approach that Senators Paul and Sasse have proposed would put Congress and the administration in the position to keep their promise and deliver that relief.”

But Trumpcare will not bring relief to the majority of Americans. The Senate Trumpcare plan is not a healthcare bill at all, but rather a way to transfer an extraordinary amount of wealth from the disabled, elderly, pregnant and poor to the rich, connected and powerful. 43 percent of Medicaid funding goes to services for people with disabilities, and Medicaid pays for almost 70 percent of nursing home care and half of all births in this country. If Medicaid is slashed by 35%, if families lose the subsidies that allowed them to purchase insurance in the marketplace, if people with pre-existing conditions can once again be discriminated against, if insurance companies can place a lifetime cap on coverage for people with chronic or serious conditions and refuse to cover essential health services, the results will be devastating.

If Trumpcare passes, people will die. States will have to choose between covering wheelchairs for students or proper maternal healthcare, in-home assistance that keeps a loved one out of an institution or drug treatment and counseling for people fighting opioid addiction. Women will go back to paying more money for less coverage as their life experiences from domestic violence to pregnancy are considered pre-existing conditions. Hospitals and nursing homes will close, especially in rural communities, and people will go without desperately needed treatment and life-saving medications. And Mitch McConnell will get to keep his seat in the Senate, his health insurance, and his influence.

[feministmajority]

By now, it’s well known that the Senate Trumpcare plan would force 22 million people to go without health insurance. That alone should be enough for Senators to reject this cruel proposal. But, that’s not all. The plan would also stuff the pockets of the health insurance industry to a tune of over $145 billion. The Republican plan is simply a way to rob Medicaid to boost already astronomical profits for their corporate donors.

All this week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has reportedly been trying to “revamp” the Senate Trumpcare plan—the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA)—to appease both conservative and moderate republicans as well as big donors. But the only way to maintain the billions of dollars in tax cuts and giveaways to insurance companies and the super-rich is to keep Medicaid on the chopping block.

While the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports a 26% cut to Medicaid by 2026, totaling $772 billion, the cuts would go much deeper: by 2036, Medicaid would be cut 35% because of the bill’s imposed caps on federal funding and the artificially tightfisted way in which the bill would calculate the Medicaid growth rate.

The federal savings from abandoning Medicaid would pay for the $541 billion in government losses from tax cuts for the wealthy. The bulk of these tax cuts would go to the top 1% of Americans.

Industry related tax cuts and giveaways in the Senate’s bill, however, stand out for their direct ties to GOP donors:

$145 billion tax break overall for the insurance industry

Removal of the federal cap on how much of your premium payments insurance companies can keep as profit instead of spending it on providing healthcare to enrollees

$25.7 billion in savings for drug makers and pharmaceutical companies

$400 million tax deduction for insurance executives

  McConnell and fellow Republicans appear to be demonstrating their patronage to their donors in the health industry; insurance, pharmaceutical, and medical device companies will be among the few benefactors of the Senate’s “healthcare” bill. Notably, 4 of the top 10 contributors to McConnell are associated with healthcare and insurance.

The GOP plans to eliminate Obama-era checks on insurance executives that limit corporate tax deductions for executive pay, an effort that aimed to curb soaring salaries for insurance executives. Corporate tax deductions allow companies to reduce their tax responsibilities.

By limiting the amount of deductions, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) redirected money from corporate pockets to help fund health coverage for low- and middle-income individuals. Under the ACA, insurance companies are only allowed to deduct $500k for each executive, including stock options and bonuses; before, tax deductions often reached over $1 million per executive, not including stock options and other forms of compensation. In 2014, the 10 biggest insurance companies paid their top 57 executives upwards of $300 million. Once in place, the ACA rule only permitted 27% in deductions, instead of 96%, accumulating $72 million in government revenue, equivalent to providing health coverage for hundreds of thousands of more people. Yet, both the House and Senate bills reverse this rule, encouraging insurance companies to pay their CEOs even more, largely at the expense of Medicaid beneficiaries.

Not only would insurance executives – like the CEO of Kindred Healthcare, a top McConnell donor – stand to directly benefit from McConnell’s payout, but other provisions of the bill would give insurance companies an additional $145 billion, again at the expense of Medicaid, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. The 13 Senate Republicans crafting the bill in secret (McConnell, Hatch, Alexander, Enzi, Thune, Gardner, Cotton, Cruz, Lee, Barasso, Cornyn, Portman, and Toomey) share campaign patronage with donors like Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Metlife, Fresenius Medical Care, and the Blackstone Group.

Insurance companies would not only receive tax breaks, but they would be the sole beneficiary of a provision in the Senate Trumpcare plan that would repeal the ACA’s minimum Medical Loss Ratio requirement, also known as the 80/20 rule. Under the ACA, for every dollar that an insurance company receives in healthcare premiums, the company has to spend at least 80 cents on providing healthcare to enrollees. Companies can take only 20 cents of consumer dollars for administrative costs or company profits. Insurers who do not meet the 80/20 target have to give back a portion of the premiums to consumers. More than $2.4 billion in rebates were paid to consumers between 2011, when the law went into effect, and 2014. In 2014, alone, 3.7 million families received a rebate.

The BCRA would eliminate the 80/20 rule and allow each state to set its own standards. That means that insurance companies will be able to pocket more of the money paid by consumers, giving an incentive to raise premiums. That money will not go to healthcare but will go to improving multi-million dollar corporations’ bottom lines.

Pharmaceutical companies will also see bigger returns, nearing $26 billion within the next decade from McConnell’s proposal. Major drug makers like Pfizer, Amgen, Astrazeneca, Gilead Sciences, and Cardinal Health also back many of the bill’s craftsmen.

Lobbying groups with clients that include Aetna and Pfizer have already begun PACs funding the 2018 congressional races for Members of Congress like Dean Heller, the Nevada Republican senator wielding a lot of power in determining the future of healthcare in the United States.

These tax cuts will take money and life-saving care from those who need it most to directly benefit the big-money campaign donors the Republican Party caters to instead of the constituents they were elected to represent. And, in the process of giving their donors tax cuts, people will die.

    Written with contribution from Amanda Gavcovich.

[feministmajority]

Right before the July 4th holiday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a new analysis of the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BRCA)—the Senate’s Trumpcare plan—showing that the bill would cut Medicaid by a whopping 35 percent by 2036, an astronomical figure that would devastate the program.

A previous CBO report showed that federal Medicaid spending would be cut by 26 percent, or $770 billion, by 2026. The latest report extended the CBO’s analysis another 10 years to show how the BRCA’s Medicaid caps would further slash funding for the program by over one-third,  shrinking funding available to the states.

Cutting Medicaid by 35 percent over 20 years will have a devastating impact.

The CBO concludes:

Under this legislation, after the next decade, states would continue to need to arrive at more efficient methods for delivering services (to the extent feasible) and to decide whether to commit more of their own resources, cut payments to health care providers and health plans, eliminate optional services, restrict eligibility for enrollment, or adopt some combination of those approaches.

In other words, to continue their Medicaid programs, states will have to raise taxes, cut other areas of their state budgets, pay providers less, cut benefits, and/or decrease the number of people covered under Medicaid.

The CBO had previously estimated that 15 million people would lose access to Medicaid by 2026 under the BRCA. As a result of its extended analysis, the CBO now reports that it expects Medicaid enrollment to continue to fall even more in the decade following, meaning more people without access to healthcare, including lifesaving services.

Women make up the majority of Medicaid beneficiaries, and nearly 70 percent of adult women in the Medicaid program are of reproductive age. Medicaid is the largest provider of publicly-funded family planning services and pays for roughly half of all U.S. births. Medicaid covers more than 1 in 3 nonelderly women with disabilities, and nearly 60 percent of senior women on Medicare supplement their coverage with Medicaid. Medicaid pays for more than half of all long-term care costs, including nursing home care (women are two-thirds of nursing home residents) and home health care (women make up 62 percent of home health care patients).

With these dramatic caps and cuts to Medicaid, which services will be cut? Will there be cuts to care for postpartum depression, eating disorders, and/or reproductive health services? Forty-two percent of Medicaid funds are spent on providing services to people with disabilities. If funds are cut, which services will have to go? What about nursing homes? Medicaid pays for two-thirds of nursing home care, but when benefits are cut, will women be forced out?

Far from a healthcare bill, the BRCA is an attack on women’s health and lives. It decimates Medicaid and puts millions of lives in jeopardy in order to produce $541 billion in tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.

Medicaid is a lifeline for millions of people. It allows women of all ages to receive basic healthcare. It allows older women, many of whom have gone through their savings and assets, to receive long-term care. It allows people with disabilities to receive appropriate care, whether medications, therapy, or community-based or in-home services, which free people to pursue jobs or an education, or simply to live with their families instead of in institutions.

Medicaid also creates jobs in the health care industry and is critical to state economies. Medicaid pays health care providers who hire and pay staff and purchase goods and services. Without Medicaid, jobs will be lost, hospitals—and in particular, rural hospitals—will be threatened, and states will lose additional revenue. Women will be disproportionately affected. Research by the National Women’s Law Center shows that women make up the vast majority of certain health care workers—80 percent of ambulatory health care employees, 76.6 percent of hospital employees, and 80.3 percent of nursing home and residential care facility employees, among other jobs. Medicaid spending supports these jobs in every state, and many of these jobs are held by women of color.

It is still expected that the Senate will vote in the coming weeks on a revised version of the Senate Trumpcare plan. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has reportedly been trying to make tweaks to the BRCA to get the 50 votes he needs to pass the bill, but Medicaid still remains on the chopping block. Caps and cuts, however, would devastate the program and jeopardize the lives and livelihoods of millions—all so wealthy GOP patrons can get billions in tax cuts they don’t need.

Media Resources: Congressional Budget Office 06/2017, 6/26/17; Kaiser Family Foundation 6/22/17; The Commonwealth Fund;  National Women’s Law Center 6/26/17.

[feministmajority]

Contact: Megan Connor meganconnor@feministmajority.org 703-973-6469

Senate Trumpcare Plan Harms Women

Media Advisory: Press Conference 6/23 @ 1 PM EST

What: Feminist Majority, National Organization for Women, In Her Own Voice, and the National Women’s Law Center join together to speak out about how the Senate and House Versions of Trumpcare harm women.

Who: Michelle Batchelor, Deputy Director of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda Terry O’Neill, President of NOW Janel George, Director of Federal Reproductive Rights and Health Eleanor Smeal, President of the Feminist Majority Women’s March on Washington

Where: National Press Club Zenger Room 529 14th Street Washington, DC

When: Friday, June 23, 2017, 1:00pm

Why: Both the House passed version of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) and the newly released draft of the Senate Better Care Reconciliation Act cruelly impact millions, especially women. The speakers will specify its disparate impact on women, especially women of color, low-come women but also middle income women, elderly women, and young women.

Live tweet the event: #stoptrumpcare

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[feministmajority]

The Feminist Majority condemns the cruel draft of the U.S. Senate healthcare bill released today that threatens to decimate Medicaid as we know it and rip health insurance away from millions. We’re calling on U.S. Senators to oppose the Senate’s deadly, heartless version of Trumpcare.

  Statement by Feminist Majority President, Eleanor Smeal:

  “Today, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell released a draft of the Senate’s healthcare bill that shamelessly targets women: pregnant women trying to access maternal and pre-natal healthcare; elderly women that make up two-thirds of nursing home patients; the women who make up two-thirds of all Medicaid recipients; and young women trying to access reproductive healthcare.

  Just like the House version, the Senate bill has almost nothing to do with healthcare, but is instead concerned with syphoning off enough money from Medicaid to give a massive tax break to the wealthiest 1% of Americans. This bill disgracefully places Medicaid on the chopping block, along with 74 million people who rely on its services, two-thirds of whom are women.

  What can we expect when this bill was drafted by 13 white male Republican Senators who have no understanding, nor seem to care, about what women need to survive? As a result, the bill looks almost exactly like the House’s version—which currently has only a 17% public approval rating—and is completely out of touch with the reality of the majority of people in America.

  That Majority Leader McConnell is trying to force this bill through with no hearings, debate or time for amendments shows exactly how recklessly they are willing to play with people’s lives. Feminists have to fight back, we have no other choice.”

[feministmajority]

There’s a docility expected of women that spans all realms of our livelihood, from personal life to professional leadership. Its impact varies with identity intersections, but is a familiar silencing mechanism known to many across the board. It is when women reject this predetermined role, that some (mostly male colleagues) will see threat. This experience of professional sexism was broadcasted nationally through the silencing of Senator Elizabeth Warren and gave persistence a platform. Under #NeverthelessShePersisted, women found refuge in a militarized meme that celebrates outspoken perseverance and the gender barriers it breaks down.

  More recently, Senator Kamala Harris was subdued by Republican leadership twice in one week citing a lack of “courtesy” towards the witnesses being questioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee. While both Warren’s and Harris’s incidents show deeply ingrained misogyny, the interrupting of Senator Harris highlighted the true nature of the double standard. Prior to her time of questioning, Senator Martin Heinrich showed Sessions no mercy while demanding the answers that weren’t being given. Sound familiar? It’s the exact same thing Harris was condemned for, but for reasons unknown (PSYCH it’s racism and misogyny) Heinrich was not only never silenced for his lack of courtesy towards gentle Keebler elf, Jeff Sessions, he was praised.

  There are a variety of traits associated with political leadership, many of which women are not given access to. That is to say, specific qualities of leaders are only seen as positive when men embody them. Looking back to the 2016 election cycle, it was clear that Hillary Clinton could never have taken the free reign that Trump did without facing backlash. In fact, Clinton was forced to spend a large portion of the presidential debates not only fact-checking Donald Trump in real time, but also keeping her composure in an almost impossible dance to balance appearing soft but not too emotional, and hard on issues, but not cold. On the other hand, outside male candidates Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were praised for their ability to tell off the mainstream expectations of them.

  For much of history, women were refused a seat at the table. Through years of unwavering perseverance, we have worked to take what is rightfully ours, but what lingers is an unaddressed feeling that women will always be guests to the conversations that belong to men. Ruth Bader Ginsburg has shared the story of being asked to justify why she, over the man whose seat she took, deserved admission to Harvard Law School. Hillary Rodham Clinton has openly discussed the attacks she faced while taking the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). This idea of seat justification today creeps ominously through the tone policing of women leaders and legislators to show that it is not courtesy desired, but silence.

  Senator Elizabeth Warren stood proudly for Senator Kamala Harris’ line of questioning, ferociously condemning the attempted muzzling. While still drastically underrepresented, women in Congress work every day to let their voices be heard. For young women nationwide, their outspoken presence empowers women to reject the idea that they must be palatable, and encourages them to own their strength.

[feministmajority]

June 5, 2017

President Donald J. Trump

The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Trump:

On behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 200 national advocacy organizations, and the 106 undersigned organizations, we stand united in expressing our profound concern that the civil and human rights of all Americans are being drastically undermined by your administration’s proposed deep cuts to key civil rights office budgets, the withdrawal of numerous important civil and human rights policies, and the appointment of officials who appear bent on retreating from statutory civil and human rights agency priorities. We call upon your administration to reverse these disturbing trends, and to demonstrate a far greater commitment to the civil and human rights of all people in this country and to the federal laws created to protect them.

Extending equal opportunity in education, employment, housing; protecting the right to vote; reducing hate violence and racial disparities in the criminal justice system; preventing discrimination in health care; and advancing economic security are not simply legal obligations that your administration must meet. Our nation’s civil and human rights laws are a testament to who we are today as a country, a sign of the tremendous progress we have made throughout our history, and a pledge we make to future generations to continue moving ever closer to our ideals of fairness and equity for all. For decades, and for compelling reasons, the vigorous enforcement of these laws has been a core federal responsibility, and should never be seen as optional or as a matter of politics.

Our concerns were recently exemplified by an article in The Washington Post, detailing recent steps your administration has taken to retreat from our nation’s longstanding commitment to civil rights enforcement. The examples cited in that article – such as the proposed elimination of the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, the end of the environmental justice program at the Environmental Protection Agency, and threats of drastic staff cutbacks in the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights – are only the most recent signs that your administration is engaged in a significant rollback of civil rights enforcement. They build upon a record that already borders on the unconscionable, which includes a discriminatory Muslim ban, limits on the use of consent decrees to reform troubled police departments, the revival of a failed war on drugs, support of an intentionally racially discriminatory voter ID law, the formation of an illegitimate “election integrity” task force to attempt to justify voter suppression efforts, increased prosecutions and mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, proposed defunding of Planned Parenthood, the signing of an executive order that endorses discrimination under the guise of religious liberty, freezes on affirmative litigation, and the rollback of guidance clarifying protections for transgender students.

We were stunned to hear a White House spokesperson claim, in the Post article, that your administration “has an unwavering commitment to the civil rights of all Americans.” Your administration’s actions to date demonstrate the opposite. We urge you to reverse course, before more individuals and communities are harmed, by resolving to take the following steps:

Enforce the law. Federal agencies must vigorously respond to complaints of civil and human rights violations, and must uphold the vital federal role of enforcing our civil and human rights laws and ensuring vulnerable communities are protected from discrimination.

Preserve existing policies. In recent years, federal civil rights offices have issued numerous policies and procedures to clarify the obligations of affected individuals, employers, and governmental entities under federal civil and human rights laws. These must be maintained.

Nominate and appoint qualified individuals. We urge you to ensure that individuals chosen to lead civil rights offices have a demonstrated record of support for federal civil rights laws and marginalized communities. Individuals who are unfamiliar with or hostile to our nation’s civil rights laws and their purpose have no place leading offices charged with protecting people from discrimination.

Prioritize data collection. A key component of civil rights enforcement, in many agencies, is continuing to collect, and make available to the public, disaggregated data to determine existing patterns and to promote better future compliance with federal hate crime and nondiscrimination laws.

Condemn bigotry and violence. Law enforcement agencies and community-based organizations have documented a significant increase in bigotry and hate crimes. We urge you to establish a White House hate crime task force to coordinate federal agency response. You and all members of your administration should use your bully pulpit to clearly condemn bias-motivated violence and bigotry targeting people based on race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability at every opportunity.

Our vision of an America as good in practice as it is in promise is fundamentally undermined by your administration’s apparent agenda of nothing less than an all-out, systemic assault on the progress our country has made since the New Deal. Our nation should honor equal protection for all, view its diversity as its strength, and strive to be an inclusive place where all in America can live, work, study, and participate in our democracy as free and equal people. We call on you and your administration to take affirmative steps to halt the problematic policies and initiatives we have outlined, and to provide positive leadership on these issues in order to promote inclusion and respect for the basic rights and dignity of every person in America.

Sincerely,

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

9to5, National Association of Working Women

A. Philip Randolph Institute

American Association for Access, Equity and Diversity

American Association of People with Disabilities

American Association of University Women (AAUW)

American Baptist Home Mission Societies

American Civil Liberties Union

American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Unions (AFL-CIO)s

American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees

American Federation of Teachers

American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee

Americans for Financial Reform

Amnesty International USA

The Andrew Goodman Foundation

Anti-Defamation League

The Arc of the United States

Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC

Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD)

Augustus F. Hawkins Foundation

Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law

Bend the Arc Jewish Action

Brennan Center for Justice

Center for American Progress

Center for Community Change Action

The Center for Constitutional Rights

Center for Law and Social Policy

Center for Reproductive Rights

Center for Responsible Lending

Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism-California State University, San Bernardino

Common Cause

Communications Workers of America

Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund

Equal Justice Society

Equality Federation

Family Equality Council

Feminist Majority

FreeState Justice

GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD)

GLSEN

Human Rights Campaign

Human Rights First

interact

Interfaith Action for Human Rights

Interfaith Alliance

International Association of Official Human Rights Agencies

Justice in Aging

Lambda Legal

Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

League of United Latin American Citizens

League of Women Voters of the United States

Legal Aid at Work

MALDEF

Matthew Shepard Foundation

Muslim Advocates

NAACP

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.

National African American Drug Policy Coalition, Inc.

National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity (NAPE)

National Association of Social Workers

National Bar Association

National Black Justice Coalition National CAPACD

National Center for Lesbian Rights

National Center for Transgender Equality

National Center for Youth Law

National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC)

National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA)

National Council of Churches

National Council of Jewish Women

National Council of La Raza

The National Council on Independent Living

National Disability Rights Network

National Education Association

National Employment Law Project

National Employment Lawyers Association

National Fair Housing Alliance

National Health Law Program

National Hispanic Media Coalition

National Immigration Law Center

National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health

National LGBTQ Task Force

National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC)

National Organization for Women

National Partnership for Women & Families

National Urban League

National Women’s Law Center

OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates

OutServe-SLDN

People For the American Way

PFLAG

Planned Parenthood Federation of America

PolicyLink

Poverty & Race Research Action Council

SALDEF

SEARAC

Service Employees International Union (SEIU)

The Sikh Coalition

South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT)

Southern Poverty Law Center

Union for Reform Judaism

United Church of Christ, Justice and Witness Ministries

The United Methodist Church – General Board of Church and Society

Whitman-Walker Health

Women of Reform Judaism

YWCA USA