Campaign Finance Reform Testimony

Laura Ladd Bierman, LWVNYS Executive Director, presented testimony on Wednesday in support of public financing of elections and other campaign finance reforms. The testimony was presented to the NYS Senate Elections Committee in response to proposals for funding in the state budget. See the testimony here. 

Action Alerts

The state League issued two Action Alerts last week concerning budget issues: the first asked members to contact their legislators to urge funding for early voting and other new voting reforms; the second urged funding for public financing of elections. See the Action Alert here (and you can still contact your legislators as the budget hasn't passed yet).

The state League also participated in a press conference today (see photo on right) to urge funding for early voting and other new voting reforms. See the video of the conference here.  

Equal Pay Day is April 2nd

(By Barb Thomas, LWVNYS Women's Issues Specialist)

According to laws already on the books, Equal Pay Day for ALL Women should be December 31. But it's not. The average woman must work far into the next year to earn what the average man earned the previous year.

It takes until April 2nd for women who work full-time to catch up with their male counterparts; mom's equal pay compared to dad's happens on June 10; black women reach parity on August 22; and equal pay day for Latinas is observed on Nov. 20. There are wide wage gaps among Asian women, so some catch up by March 5 but others not until mid-July.

The wage gap starts at the beginning of a woman's career and multiples over time. Indeed, right out of college, women experience a 7% wage gap. Females are often pushed into lower paying jobs and job titles that allow women to be paid less for substantially equal work. The pay gap can begin even earlier as teens. According to a 2018 analysis, boys earn on average twice what girls earn for chores.

Collectively women in New York State lose $17 billion dollars a year due to the pay gap. This hurts women and their families, but it also hurts the communities they support: local businesses are hurt through lost sales, as are local schools and governments that depend upon sales tax and property tax dollars to fund the programs and the infrastructure those communities need to exist.

Change needs to happen but there is good news. Our state legislature and governor have the opportunity to pass game-changing laws this session. And, Congress may finally move forward on common sense reform. That will only happen if we all speak out, contact our elected representatives (not in the League's name, but your own), and call for equal pay for all New York women, now.

Court Reform Comes Alive! 

(By  Elizabeth "Libby" Hubbard, member of the Huntington League and former Judicial Chair and State President of the LWVNYS)

Progress toward a major goal of a venerable Action Item appears achievable, beginning in the 2019 session of the new State Legislature-and that is Court Simplification. The LWV in New York has worked for this since the 1950s-yes the 1950s! Along the way, we have had important successes in improving how the state court system functions and serves the public-Merit Selection of the Court of Appeals, centralized financing and administration of the courts and establishing the Commission on Judicial Conduct, but reducing the number of separate trial courts from 11 to 3 has so far eluded us.

 

I'll only cite one reason among many why this particular goal is so important: the Family Court, where women and children have critical parts of their lives determined, is a "lower" court and receives many more cases but much less funding than the "higher" Supreme Court, which deals with wealthier clients and their civil cases. If they were one and the same court, this would not be the case.

 

The State League (and the LWVNYC) are members of a growing Coalition, led by The Fund for Modern Courts, which will work on passage of a Constitutional Amendment to finally bring court simplification to NYS. The Chief Judge of the State and the major Bar Associations will be at our side.