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Legislative and Advocacy Priorities, UU FaithAction NJ 2020-2021

by Rev. Rob Gregson 1 Comment

Legislative and Advocacy Priorities, UU FaithAction NJ 2020-2021

Criminal Justice Task Force

  • Youth Justice Transformation. Stopping the school to prison pipeline is essential to reducing the number of individuals, especially people of color, out of our state corrections facilities. Restorative justice pilot projects called for in one of our priority bills, will work to keep young people, especially youth of color in urban areas, out of the criminal justice system and provide them with support they need in their own communities.
  • Expanding Post-Prison Reentry Services. With continued corrections and parole reform, as well as Public Health Emergency Credits, more and more individuals will be released and need to reintegrate into their communities of origins. Services are critical to ensure as smooth a transition as possible. Reentry services will assist those being released in reintegrating into their home communities, becoming active citizens who can participate in the important work to be done in rebuilding their communities– often urban, and minority.
  • Dismantling Racism. Three different bills address different aspects of racism within the criminal justice system: the need for an amendment to the Constitution, a bill to form a Reparations Task Force, and a bill to restrict the use of deadly force by the police. Advocacy will focus attention on how institutional racism feeds the criminal/corrections system– through our failures to protect all lives in the Constitution, to failures to protect individuals during interactions with police, and failures to correct for our history of slavery which has left African Americans — as individuals, families and as a people– robbed of their labor, their wealth and their influence in the larger society and economy.

Environmental Justice Task Force

  • Reduce Fossil Fuel Emissions, especially in EJ Neighborhoods with Focus on Transportation. Follow lead of Environmental Justice partners including NJEJA, Ironbound Corp., Clean Water Action. This will have direct impact on health of residents in EJ neighborhoods.
  • Reduce lead in households, both in drinking water and lead paint. Following lead of EJ partners including NJEJA, Ironbound Corp. and Clean Water Action, help promote outreach to residents about avoiding or reducing lead in drinking water and lead paint in their households
  • Promote the Green Amendment. Conduct outreach, especially through UU congregations, to build understanding and support for the Green Amendment Bill in NJ promoting the right to clean air, clean water and a healthy environment. Follow the lead of “Green Amendments for the Future”. The Green Amendment is supported by our EJ partners.

Gun Violence Prevention Task Force

  • The GVP task under the leadership of its chair, Liandra Pires, has been active in renewing their focus and vision. Additionally, the task force continues to advocate for the Safe Storage Bill which is in the process of being updated to centers an anti-racist/anti-oppression lens around this important legislation concerning firearm and ammunition storage. The task force will continue in the process of identifying specific legislative and educational priorities in their monthly meetings.

Immigrant Justice Task Force

  • Legislative Priorities
    • Enact Covid-related relief legislation to include undocumented persons, starting with S2480/A4171.
    • Enact the Immigrant Trust Directive into Statutory Law with few carve-outs for criminal offenses.
    • Enact DACA program into statute, at federal level, with as few restrictions as possible.
  • Advocacy/Educational Priorities
    • Effective implementation of driver’s license regulations for undocumented persons, with as little interaction with federal government as possible.
    • Investigate and publicize the holding of children separated from parents at southern border in South Jersey foster homes
    • Promote need for as much funding for legal representation of detainees as possible.

Reproductive Justice Task Force

  • Support for the Reproductive Freedom Act. S3030/A 4848, which safeguards reproductive care, upholds basic rights and justice, and respects decision-making throughout pregnancy for all women regardless of race, class, sexuality, ability, or citizenship status. The bill expands the protections of reproductive justice beyond the right to abortion to include protections and expanded access to birth control and pregnancy-related care, as well as eliminating medically-unnecessary restrictions that block access to care.
  • Monitor the work of the Commission to Study Sexual Assault, Misconduct and Harassment by Staff against Inmates in NJ State Correctional Facilities, especially at NJ’s Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women, who are disproportionately Black and Brown women, poor women, and also transgender women.
  • Strengthen maternal health and reduce maternal mortality, including supporting the Maternal Mortality Review Commission, and affirm our commitment to ending New Jersey’s shameful record as a state with one of the worst Black-White racial disparities in maternal deaths in the nation.
  • Support the strategic plan of the Sexual Education Subcommittee of Thrive NJ, which challenges heterosexist and cis-sexist assumptions about sexuality and gender.
  • Monitor the implementation of the address confidentiality law (PL 2019.c175) by reviewing the proposed regulations with assistance from Legal Advocacy, and encourage comments that will advance our goal of protecting access to abortion for all women and their providers.

Take action to ensure S21/A21 implements socially and racially just regulations around cannabis use

by Charles Loflin Leave a comment

New Jerseyans voted overwhelmingly to legalize cannabis for adult use. Now comes the all-important task of passing legislation which will implement this decision. Given the disproportionate harm experienced by communities of color under cannabis prohibition, it’s essential that the state’s response prioritizes ending arrests and the collateral consequences that stem from them.

Read More “Take action to ensure S21/A21 implements socially and racially just regulations around cannabis use”

RHM 10/23/20 Rev. Rob in the News

by Rev. Rob Gregson Leave a comment

On the criminal justice front, Rob has been involved in continuing discussions on the structure of the Restorative Justice in NJ group. Restorative Justice in NJ came out of the Criminal Justice Task Force’s “Common Read” of Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration and a Road to Reparations by Danielle Sered.  A multi-faith, multi-organizational effort led by CJTF member and UU Tricia Idrobo, the group hopes to develop a database of NJ programs and practitioners, schools, youth diversion, etc.

On Reproductive Justice, Rev. Rob was invited to attend Gov. Murphy’s press conference launch of the Reproductive Freedom Act, an attempt to codify as well as update outdated legislation to include trans rights, etc.  Rob was a signatory to the NJ Interfaith Council letter endorsing reproductive health care services.

RHM 10/23/20 Repro Freedom Act

by Rev. Rob Gregson Leave a comment

What Is the Reproductive Justice Task Force Involved With Today?

Championing Reproductive Freedom Act:  On Oct. 2, Governor Murphy and many of our coalition partners (Planned Parenthood, The Thrive Coalition NJ, Cherry Hill Women’s Center, etc.) announced new legislation called The Reproductive Freedom Act. The Reproductive Freedom Act protects and expands access to birth control and pregnancy-related care including abortion by breaking down medically-unnecessary restrictions that only serve to block access to care. It also secures a future that safeguards reproductive care, upholds basic rights and justice, and respects decision-making throughout pregnancy.

Passing the Reproductive Freedom Act will help protect everyone’s ability to receive reproductive health care, from birth control to pregnancy-related care, including safe, appropriate and individually-sensitive abortion.

A Win for Women/People Incarcerated at Edna Mahan Correctional Center for Women: With encouragement/pressure from your emails and calls (Thank You!!), Gov. Murphy mid-September signed Resolution SJR-79/AJR-167 (Greenstein, Gill/Vainieri Huttle, Tucker, Murphy) to create a commission to study sexual assault, misconduct, and harassment by staff against inmates in State correctional facilities.

RHM 10/23/20 Issues Conf. keynote speakers

by Rev. Rob Gregson Leave a comment

Ms. Sampson, Senior Counsel and Director of Racial Justice at the nationally-recognized Brady Campaign, works to prevent gun violence through cultivating a committed, informed, and effective pro bono attorney network, educating the courts on gun violence related cases, and making the connection between gun violence prevention and racial justice. In 2016, Kelly and Jon Lowy co-authored The Right Not To Be Shot: Public Safety, Private Guns, and the Constellation of Constitutional Liberties, published in the Georgetown Journal of Law and Policy. Originally from Detroit, Kelly is especially interested in addressing gun violence’s disproportionate impact on the Black community. Kelly earned a Bachelor’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Michigan and a J.D from Columbia Law school.

Mr. Patel is a Gun Violence Prevention activist and gun violence survivor from Jersey City.  A student at Rutgers University majoring in Criminal Justice, Jai was an organizer for Jersey City’s March For Our Lives in 2018, an event which drew over 3,000 people. He founded the Hudson County and Rutgers Chapters of Students Demand Action, and sits on the Students Demand Action National Advisory Board.

Support a New Jersey Commission on Racial Reparations

by Charles Loflin Leave a comment

Many Unitarian Universalists, along with other Americans of good faith and conscience, have struggled for years with the searing legacy of 450 years of legalized slavery, Jim Crow laws and other policies of institutionalized racism North, South, East and West across the United States up to the present day. Many of our congregations in New Jersey are supporting or studying the adoption of an 8th Principle, one that would directly address the spiritual and ethical demands of this shameful legacy on our faith movement today.

A711/S322, to create a “New Jersey Reparations Task Force,” is expressly designed to help advance work for racial justice here in the Garden State. The bill would study reparations proposals for African-Americans in New Jersey.*

The task force would consist of 11 members, comprised of four legislators and seven citizens. This bill, among other things, requires the task force to:  (1) examine the institution of slavery within the State of New 43 Jersey;  (2) examine the extent to which the State of New Jersey and the federal government prevented, opposed, or restricted efforts of former enslaved persons and their descendants who are considered United States’ citizens to economically thrive upon the ending of slavery, and examine the lingering negative effects of slavery on living  African-Americans and on society in New Jersey and the United States.

The Task force will make recommendations for what remedies should be awarded, through what instrumentalities, and to whom those remedies should be awarded; and address how said recommendations comport with national and international standards of remedy for wrongs and injuries caused by the State.  An interim report is required within 12 months with a final report for action to be delivered within 24 months.

The Assembly bill has been sent to the Assembly State and Local Government Committee chaired by Asm. Vincent Mazzeo. The NJ Senate version goes before the Senate State Government, Wagering, Tourism & Historic Preservation Committee chaired by Sen. James Beach.

The Assembly bill is sponsored by Assemblypeople Shavonda Sumter, Britnee Timberlake, and Verlina Reynolds-Jackson.

The Senate bill is sponsored by Senators Ron Rice, Sandra Cunningham, Troy Singleton, Leona Weinberg, Shirley Turner, and Nina Gill.

Please give your “yes” request to the committee chairs and members by clicking the button above or below.

In faith, with love, and for justice,

The Board and Staff at UU FaithAction NJ

*With thanks to Rohn Hein, UU Cherry Hill and other UU organizers for bringing this bill to our attention

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