Fair Fight, Fridges, and Family Leave: March 24 - April 10, 2021

Hi Teen Resisters!

Hope you and your loved ones are staying safe & doing well. This week's list covers the new Georgia voting law, 

Before you dive in, we wanted to draw your attention to a few quick things:

• Arkansas just passed an egregious anti-transgender bill outlawing gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth. (Read more here.) It is the latest and most extreme in a train of anti-trans state legislation, breaking records in 2021. We will do a more comprehensive action-based piece on this issue in our next list; for now, you can stay up to date with this anti-trans legislation tracker. You can follow @ChaseStrangio, a civil rights lawyer for the ACLU, on Twitter-- you'll find consistent updates on news and action. You can also look for trans mutual aid groups around you send support directly.
• President Biden recently introduced a massive bill called the American Jobs Plan investing in infrastructure, climate reform, research, racial justice, and more over the next eight years, paid for by a raise on corporate taxes for fifteen years. It has the potential to fundamentally reshape America's fabric. Watch out for developments on that. 
• Unaccompanied minors are recently crossing the border in greater numbers as the Biden administration continues inaction on the issue. Check out one of our last lists, Spring Cleaning, for an in-depth overview of the reopening of facilities for unaccompanied minors & concrete actions to take.

Take care of & be kind to yourselves if you are feeling exhausted, hopeless and/or burned out. (As the NYT recently wrote, We Have All Hit a Wall.) Thank you always for all your amazing work! 

Peace & power,
TR

what went down

New Restrictive Georgia Voting Law
On March 25th, 2021, Georgia Republicans passed a new voting law that will change the process of voting in the state. This new law has introduced stricter regulations on voting, reducing access to ballots in urban and suburban areas. However, the law that was passed did not include some of the harsher restrictions that were presented in the earlier proposals-- a testament to how it could have been even worse without the voting rights movement in Georgia right now, including Fair Fight.  

 Some of the most significant changes included in this law are:

• Offering refreshments or umbrellas to those waiting in line to vote are now crimes.
• The number of drop boxes will be decreased. 
• Early voting will develop more in smaller communities but might diminish in more populous ones.
• There will be less time for voters to request absentee ballots.

• Stricter new ID requirements for absentee ballots will be implemented. 
• It is now more arduous to extend voting hours if election problems do come up.
• The Georgia legislature, which is Republican-controlled, has more control over the State Election Board. 

The results of these changes are predicted to include much longer wait times and less access to voting in more urban areas such as Atlanta, which have a higher population of Black people and are also majority Democratic. By getting rid of the ability to bring snacks and water, the policy discourages people even further from waiting in line.

Republicans have focused the branding on the voter ID part of the policy-- which is supported by the majority of Americans for its seeming common sense, but in reality, is a policy that will create new inequities because of ID access, and isn’t necessary at all because voter fraud is so incredibly low. The policies all fit into the long history of voter suppression in America (read more history from us here).

The main policy meant to protect against laws like this is the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Prior to 2013, one of the most important sections of the VRA was Section 5, which required a certain group of states with histories of voter suppression (including Georgia) to get pre-clearance from the Dept. of Justice on any election-related changes. A Biden DOJ evaluation would have likely stopped this new Georgia law in its tracks. Unfortunately, in 2013, the Supreme Court struck down Section 5 in the infamous Shelby v. Holder case; the justification that Chief Justice John Roberts used in his opinion was that the pre-clearance policy was no longer necessary, and could not justify disparate treatment to states. At the time, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented by saying that the fact that preclearance seemed unnecessary-- that voter suppression had gone down-- was just proof that it was working, and taking it away would be foolish. She was, of course, correct.

Now, the main function of the VRA in opposition to laws like this, is Section 2, which prohibits any election practices that discriminate on the basis of race. The problem with this is that it is based on proven effects, not pre-clearance, and so usually Section 2 lawsuits (many of which have been filed for this law) take years and elections to complete. 

The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act intends to repair the damage done by Shelby v. Holder by circumventing the parts of Section 5 that the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional and reinstate preclearance. We will give resources to push for this act in the action section.
There has also been an outbreak of protests in opposition of this law. There have been boycotts on companies that stayed silent during this process. This has pushed many businesses to take a stand and speak out against the suppression this law promotes. Yet, the fight is not over. All across the state, people are voicing this disapproval of the new voting law and are attempting to hold big corporations accountable to receive more support from more powerful industries. 

WHAT YOU CAN DO (for now): 

• Read up on the protests surrounding the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, GA this week.
• Read up on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
• Support Fair Fight Action in their upcoming efforts to curb the effects of this law.​

Marshall Plan for Moms
In 1948, Congress’ Marshall Plan gave the modern-day equivalent of over $130 billion to European governments after World War II. Seventy years later, people at home are asking for a similar payment during another troubled crisis. But this time, the recipients would be different: mothers.

The Marshall Plan for Moms is a policy proposal spearheaded by tech CEO Reshma Saujani. It is based on a phenomenon that the pandemic has illuminated-- “Other countries have social safety nets. The US has women,” as sociologist Jessica Calarco put it. The plan specifically suggests the government pay $2,400 stimulus checks to America’s mothers who have replaced paid workforce labor with unseen labor at home, in order to stabilize their livelihoods and compensate for unpaid housework. Additionally, the plan includes policies like paid family leave, affordable childcare, and pay equity.

As the movement’s website explains, the pandemic has led over two million women to leave the workforce to care for their children. Direct payments to all, it claims, are the best way to help these families until they regain a stable source of income.
The proposal has been quite popular, with many famous and powerful figures backing the idea. Among them are celebrities like Stephen Curry, Eva Longoria, and Charlize Theron, and politicians like Amy Klobuchar and Andrew Yang.

What led to this movement, anyway?
    The pandemic has hurt almost everyone economically, but the movement especially reflects the U.S.’ inadequate support for families with children. Key welfare programs like universal child care, pre-kindergarten, and paid parental leave are unavailable to them, despite being a mainstay in other developed countries.
    In the past year, over 2 million women left the labor force and millions more cut back on their hours; many of them are moms who did so to pick up the slack of caregiving that resulted from remote school. This has particularly affected moms of color and low-income moms.
Our society expects moms, and women in general, to pick up caregiving needs in times of crisis, and the pandemic is no exception. These articles explain more:

• “Three American Mothers, On the Brink”
• “America’s Mothers Are In Crisis”
• “Pandemic Could Scar a Generation of Working Mothers”

WHAT YOU CAN DO: 

• Sign the petition at this link.
• Call your representatives and ask them to support H. Res. 121, introduced by Rep. Grace Meng.
  Number: 202-224-3121- follow instructions for your Reps (not Senators)
  Script: Hi, my name is ___ and I’m from ___. I’m calling to tell you I would like you to lend your support to H.R. 121, which would acknowledge the necessity of a Marshall Plan for Moms to restore the harm done to working moms during the pandemic who disproportionately left the workforce to do less visible work at home. The policies in the plan are ones I think need to be discussed in Congress, and this resolution will get the ball rolling. Thank you.

Positive Highlight: Community Fridges
The silent but strong bond of the NYC community is exemplified on sidewalks with filled fridges for hungry New Yorkers. Community Fridges (or Friendly Fridges) are fridges stocked with free food for food insecure New Yorkers that have been popping up in the city since February 2020. Due to the pandemic there has been a surge in hunger that soup kitchens and food pantries are unable to fulfill; 1 in 4 New Yorkers struggle with food insecurity. Community Fridges are a pandemic addition to battle the issue of hunger. Community Fridges are powered by local business, bodegas, and building owners who volunteer their electricity. Filled with food and premade meals by anyone who would like to donate, and available to New Yorker’s who are struggling to buy food for themselves. 

Many community fridges were started by New Yorkers who were inspired by another community fridge and wanted to start one in their neighborhood. They are now maintained by hardworking volunteers and activism groups such as In Our Hearts. 

WHAT YOU CAN DO:
The need for food insecurity assistance in New York is more dire now than ever. To contribute to this amazing project find a Community Fridge below using this locator map. If there is not a community fridge near your home, do what many other volunteers have and start your own community fridge! 

If you would like to donate food, money, or time to a Hunger charity click on a link below: 

• City Harvest
• Food Bank In Manhattan NYC, 
• Food Bank In Bronx, NYC
• Feeding America

This list was written by Ananya Gera, Christopher Giang, Samantha Desch, Kate Griem, and Sonia Chajet Wides

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