Legislative handbook turns grassroots concerns into policy prescriptions to make state government work for everyday Pennsylvanians
HARRISBURG – The We The People – Pennsylvania campaign today released “A Roadmap to a New Pennsylvania: State Policy Towards a Safer, Healthier, More Prosperous and Equitable Commonwealth,” a comprehensive public policy manual for lawmakers and advocates.
We The People – PA is a non-partisan, issue advocacy campaign in support of middle and working class Pennsylvania families and marginalized communities. One hundred and twenty-two state House and Senate candidates, including the leaders of the Democratic Party in both the House and Senate, endorsed the We The People – PA agenda during the 2018 campaign.
The We The People campaign aims to make state government work for all Pennsylvanians, not just the rich and well-connected. The campaign’s pro-active issue agenda was created by people who came together in 13 community meetings all over the state. They reached broad agreement on what they wanted from state government: public policies that make poor, working-class and middle-class Pennsylvanians safer, healthier, and more prosperous. These citizens devised a common policy agenda. The Roadmap is a more detailed analysis of the challenges Pennsylvanians face and the policies that can be turned into legislation that reflect the needs of Pennsylvanians.
“Our hope is that this book becomes an invaluable reference guide for legislators, many of whom formally endorsed the We The People policy and who share our stands on issues like healthcare, raising wages, education, and participation in our democracy,” said Marc Stier, Chair of the We The People – PA campaign. “For too long we have listened to extremists who tell us that economic growth is created by lower taxes on the rich and lowering wages so that we can encourage business investment. Our goal was to show a different path to prosperity, one based on raising wages and benefits and investing in the education of our citizens.”
The We The People – PA campaign commissioned a comprehensive, statewide survey of 1,150 registered voters across the state. The poll provides dramatic evidence to support the overall policy agenda. It also showed that the current leadership of the General Assembly is completely out of touch with what the people of Pennsylvania want from government. At a time when that leadership is focused on cutting Medicaid and SNAP, undermining unions, and blocking tax increases on natural gas drillers, the polling results found that, by margins of 30% to 40% or more, Pennsylvanians believe that state government is investing too little, rather than too much in Pennsylvania communities. The polling shows that those areas include K-12 education, Pre-K education, healthcare, roads and transportation infrastructure, job training, and combating opioid addiction.
READ A POLLING MEMO AND TOP-LINE RESULTS, ALONG WITH AN SLIDE DECK OF POLLING RESULT ANALYSIS HERE: http://wethepeoplepa.org/polling/.
The We The People – PA pro-active agenda is comprised of six main principles, which constitute the six chapters of the Roadmap:
- Raise wages and improve working conditions by increasing the minimum wage, restoring the 40-hour work week, helping more Pennsylvanians join unions, and guaranteeing everyone earned sick time.
- Adequately and equitably fund K-12 public education and provide free or reduced tuition for public colleges and job training programs so that all Pennsylvanians have the opportunity to find meaningful, rewarding work.
- Protect our rights to the necessities of life: food security, decent housing, and, by expanding public health insurance programs, quality, affordable health care.
- Invest in our infrastructure and safeguard our environment: fix our roads and bridges, expand our transit systems, and protect our air and water.
- Fix our rigged tax system by asking those with the most to do their part: increase taxes on large corporations, the wealthy, and natural gas drillers while decreasing or keeping the same taxes on working- and middle-class Pennsylvania families.
- Secure our democracy: end gerrymandering, make it easier to vote, limit the effects of money on our politics, and eliminate all barriers of race and gender to inclusion in our political and economic life.
“As we go around the state and listen to Pennsylvanians talk about what state government can do to help their communities thrive, they talk to us about investing in people and their communities. They don’t tell us about how we need to cut investment. They don’t tell us about how we need to cut safety net programs. They don’t tell us about how we need to make it harder to join a union, or to make it harder for municipalities to raise the minimum wage. They don’t have some false notion about cutting our way to better communities, but they all wonder why our General Assembly seems to think that’s the answer,” said Kadida Kenner, Campaign Director for We The People – PA.
The campaign will continue to mobilize Pennsylvanians around a 2019 legislative agenda and holding legislators accountable to the policy agenda that so many of them endorsed in 2018, while also growing the list of elected officials who endorse the agenda.
More information about the campaign is available at www.WeThePeoplePA.org.
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