CALLING ALL SOCIAL ACTIVISTS AND CONCERNED UUs

CALLING ALL SOCIAL ACTIVISTS AND CONCERNED UUs:  UU Faith Action NJ, our UU lobbying group, held their annual issues conference via zoom last Saturday, Nov. 7.  In addition to hearing from speakers on gun violence, attendees joined one of the individual task force groups to discuss their legislative focus for the coming political cycle. The groups focus on social justice issues consistent with our UU values and directly lobby our representatives on language and content of bills in the legislative pipe line. Our task force groups include Criminal Justice, Environmental Justice, Gun Violence Prevention, Immigration Justice, and Reproductive Justice. In the 13 years since its inception, the group has had great success in getting legislation passed to insure the rights of minorities, women, and oppressed groups. When a bill is being prepared, having more voices contacting our legislators is a great advantage in effecting the amendments and language of the bill. As an example, the Criminal Justice Task Force is preparing to be directly involved in writing the new marijuana legislation. The referendum mandates a legalization bill but doesn’t address release of individuals previously convicted of a violation or expungement of criminal records or assistance for individuals reentering society after incarceration. The actual bill is yet to be written and what is says about these issues, and how state revenue from the sale of marijuana will be used, has yet to be codified. This is where we come in. If you are willing and able to call members of the NJ legislature to advocate for or against a bill in consideration, please let me know. I will compile a list of volunteers and email you information about the bill and who to call when your help is needed. It will not be an over burdensome task with weekly requests and you don’t have to commit to being available every time on every issue, just once in a while.   Please send me a short email with your contact information if you want to help social justice thrive in New Jersey.  Ira Mendelsberg, imart4ira@cs.com“