UU FaithAction NJ Executive Director Annual Report, 2018-2019
UU FaithAction, alongside our progressive coalition partners, have seen successful action on several of our most important issues—notably an increase in the minimum wage and passage of the independent prosecutor legislation. We have also, in the latter half of 2018 and early part of 2019, experienced a marked slow-down on—and in the case of district gerrymandering, outright opposition to—a whole range of advocacy issues that our collective conscience calls us to consider.
We have also taken several extraordinary steps in our ongoing evolution as an organization, in particular a hard look at the internal working of our Board and staff vis-à-vis gender power dynamics. The release of the UU FaithAction NJ Statement of Recommitment that went out 2 weeks ago as an Education Alert reflects our concerns about these imbalances and other issues of power and oppression. I would direct you to the home page of our website to read this important one-page document if you haven’t already.
We have made other changes this year as well, equally significant. One is the changeover from our first and founding Legal Advocacy Project/LAP chair, Gary Nissenbaum, to our newest supervising attorney, Lina Genovesi. We will be thanking Gary at the end of this business meeting session for his and his staff’s game-changing contribution to UU FaithAction and I have the great pleasure of introducing Lina at the end of my remarks.
In my printed report, and during this summation, I will be weaving the remarkable progress our Task Force chairs, their respective vice chairs and teams as well as FaithAction staff have made on the Signature Legislation/Regulation Initiative. Signature Legislation, as it is known, has been the prime focus of the LAP and a major new piece of work for all of us in leadership. Signature Legislation means UUs in NJ are now not only following others’ lead on major social change in NJ, but have stepped up to the plate to offer that leadership by proposing our own legislative and regulatory changes where there is an observable need.
We began last spring with good news on the state front, though UUs were largely dismayed by ethical and political issues on the national level. 6 Gun Violence Prevention bills were passed and signed into law by Gov. Murphy mid-June 2018, and we were invited to be at the signing. Our hard-working TF chair, Jeannine Clayton-Cole, who will be passing the baton to Kathy Allen Roth next month, also received an award on behalf of FaithAction for our GVP work from the Coalition for Peace Action/Ceasefire NJ that same month.
Many UUs, including our supporters and myself, demonstrated over 5 weeks in Trenton alongside others taking part in the reinvigorated Poor People’s Campaign, and word on the street is that we’ll see more coming from that direction soon. I went to our national General Assembly in part for the annual Council of UU Social Action Networks, or CUUSAN, yearly meeting and participated in joint work among our partner networks alongside the UUA/UU Service Committee’s Love Resists campaign. Nick Lewis and I return to this work at GA in June and I have been asked again to represent FaithAction NJ at another national organizing meeting in July up in Boston.
Other highlights include hard lobbying and demonstrating on behalf of driver’s licenses for immigrants and the undocumented, sponsoring a 2 part lay preaching workshop to inspire social justice preaching led by Board member Rev. Karen Johnston, and renewing efforts to ensure a social justice focus in any future marijuana legalization bill which of course continues to bounce back and forth in the legislature.
We have been central to renewing the push to end solitary confinement as we know it in NJ, have moved towards the final hurdle in the NJ Assembly to pass our very first piece of signature legislation, Address Confidentiality for Reproductive Health Care Workers and Clients, and called for, along with our environmental partners, a complete moratorium on any planning permission for Fossil Fuel infrastructure construction with various oil and gas pipelines and a large natural gas compressor station in the Meadowlands being pushed by industry. I would also lift up our very successful–and highly personal for many of us–rally and campaign in November/December to allow Dreamer and longtime NJ resident, Jorge Chajon, to remain with his family in the US. Rev. Anya Sammler-Michael from Montclair, Rev. Alison Miller from Morristown, Rev. Karen Johnston from E. Brunswick, Rev. Mary Tiebout from Newton and I spent long hours at the Federal Courthouse in Newark supporting the truly amazing work done by new UU and local immigrant advocate, Dr. Kristen Peck, in connecting us with the Chajons and championing their cause for many long and worrisome months.
Other issues UU FaithAction has focused on over the past year includes the following:
- Universal Legal Representation funding to ensure detainees have the means to have a full hearing before immigration judges
- Supported Voting Rights for the Incarcerated, Parolees and Probationers as a matter of racial and civic justice
- Sponsoring regulation to ensure prisoners and families have the right to face to face, and not just video screen, contact with one another through our Criminal Justice signature regulatory change
- Worked to ensure the Environmental Justice communities, which is to say poorer communities and communities of color, are offered access to any new jobs and other positive benefits when the Community Solar legislation goes into effect;
- Testified and helped to pass the $15 Minimum Wage Act
- Lobbied key legislators on the Safe Storage of Firearms and Ammunition legislation, getting initial agreement by the prime sponsors to change the penalities for unsafe storage of weapons/ammo from a simple misdemeanor to a felony charge
- Moved from a “state sanctuary or supporting sanctuary” initiative to sponsoring and, with a new $10k grant from the UUSC, helping to form a new “Underground Railroad” partnership to help migrants and asylum seekers being sent from border states across the US
- Protested an attempt to “legitimize” party-based gerrymandering at a private meeting of Democratic state leaders leading to our mention in a Huffington Post article
- Education around income inequality working alongside the Work Environment Council
- Exploring issues around increased funding for reproductive health care in NJ
- Arguing before the Essex Co. and Bergen Co. Freeholders to end their blood money contracts for detainee jail beds with ICE and the Federal Gov’t
- Completed the first draft of the All Faiths Justice Alliance Local Policing and Antiracism 60 page curriculum and toolkit, which at long last is ready to be piloted, perhaps even here in Montclair
- Co-led a bistate UU Social Justice Toolkit workshop with UUPLAN (Pennsylvania’s social action network)
- Promoted the use of virtual reality “solitary cells” headsets within and outside UU congregations (with thanks to Joe and Ann Houle, Lincroft, for making this possible)
- Helped to staff the leadership teams of the NJ Coalition of Religious Leaders and the NJ Prophetic Agenda, as well as within various other coalition groups
- Earned Paid Sick Days
Organizationally, UU FaithAction has grown in complexity as well: This past year, we:
- Hired a new part-time Assistant to the Director/Outreach Coordinator, Clara Jenkins
- Held two back-to-back Development and Advocacy regional meetings, featuring Prof. Meghan Sacks at the Morristown congregation on criminal justice reform and WNYC journalist, Matt Katz, on immigration in NJ and nationally
- Held two Task Force chairs/vice chairs half day retreats, one in the fall and one as a midyear review in January and regularized the process by which issues are chosen at the Fall Issues Conference
- Held a midyear all day Board review facilitated meeting in January and an annual summer weekend leadership retreat for planning and reflection
- Held the 5th Annual MUUsicFest at UU Princeton with over 100 performers from 8 congregations singing and playing to help support this ministry
Volunteer efforts on the part of the UU FaithAction NJ board, task forces, liaisons, volunteers and congregations compounds our efforts and makes us what we are and are becoming—a real force for moral suasion on statewide issues of mercy and justice . As executive director, I would like to thank the staff, board and all of our volunteers for everything they do. The strength of UU FaithAction rests on its congregational support and the enthusiasm and help of so many of you here today and back in your home communities.
When we act together, we strengthen our power and influence to create a more just and compassionate world.
In faith, with love, for justice,
Rev. Rob Gregson, Executive Director
April 13, 2019