The Hot Sheet

Important City Council update!

ACTION ALERT! Pittsburgh City Council plans to vote TOMORROW on a package of legislation that deals with lobbyist and campaign finance disclosure and no-bid contracts, introduced by Councilman Bill Peduto.

#1 Campaign Finance Reform bill would:

• limit Council campaign contributions to $1,000 for individuals, $2,000 for PAC’s
• limit Mayoral contributions to $2,000 for individuals, $4,000 for PAC’s
• require the creation of a searchable database of all campaign contributions and city contracts.

#2  No-bid contracts bill would eliminate no-bid contracts with the city valued at more than $30,000

#3 Lobbyist Disclosure Act would require all Request-For-Proposal responses to disclose finder’s fee or payments to lobbyists or consultants.

#4 Lobbyist Registration Act would require anyone engaging in more than 30 hours of paid lobbying during a three-month period to register as lobbyists with the city.
The vote is scheduled for TOMORROW, Wednesday April 29th. This would be a major step for Pittsburgh towards good government practices and policies.

Call your city councilperson and ask them to VOTE YES for Councilman Peduto’s proposed good government legislation!

http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/council/

Tags: campaign finance, city council, legislation, pittsburgh, reform, transparency, vote

Get a Scholarship to NetRoots Nation

The 2009 Netroots Nation convention is the fourth annual gathering of the netroots community from across the country and includes panels and caucuses led by national and international experts; prominent political, issue and policy-oriented speakers; a progressive film screening series and the most concentrated gathering of high-profile progressive bloggers to date. Lots and lots of bloggers!  And this year’s convention is in Pittsburgh, PA from August 13th to 16th!

Lots of local activists, organizers, and caring volunteers are already planning to either attend or be a part of this thing.  It’s a big deal.

DFA and Netroots Nation sends a group of progressive activists who had proven their skills, but may not have the resources to get to the convention on their own. Last year, they sent 30 great progressive leaders.

THE COMPETITION STARTS TODAY - APPLY NOW

The scholarship covers the cost of admission and lodging.  Go here learn more about the NetRoots Nation event.

Tags: blogs, competition, contest, democracy for america, netroots nation, progressive, schoarship

Our mayor, our safety, our future!

Hear what the Pittsburgh mayoral candidates have to say on topics relating to our city’s safety and plans to address violence and crime in our neighborhoods.

Remember, what happens in any part of the city affects us all, so this is an important event not to miss!

Tags: debate, forum, gang, gun, mayoral, pittsburgh, public, safety, violence, Youth

Got a question for the mayoral candidates?

The PA League of Young Voters and the League of Women Voters of Greater Pittsburgh have teamed up with KDKA to bring you the best mayoral debate Pittsburgh’s had yet — one where citizens ask the questions!

Starting now , you can upload your question to the KDKA website.  Then, on April 15th at 7pm, tune in as mayoral candidates Luke Ravenstahl, Patrick Dowd, and Carmen Robinson will respond to the questions submitted!

The concept is based off the wildly-successful (in our opinion) YouTube Presidential Debates of last year…and we’re happy that KDKA was willing to take this innovative format on at their studios.

TIP: Direct your questions to all three candidates, and keep them under 30 seconds (which is plenty long for video!).  Don’t forget to say who you are and where you’re from, or what group you’re with, and a couple sentences about why you care about the topic (to make it more interesting).

UPLOAD YOUR QUESTION HERE:  http://kdka.com/debatequestion

PS — and don’t forget to check out our voter guide, being released this Saturday April 4th at The Town Tavern on the South Side –featuring a free “make-your-own-taco” bar, $2 drinks, DJ!  Probably a few candidates, too.  9pm-Midnight

Tags: carmen robinson, debate, KDKA, luke ravenstahl, mayor, mayoral, patrick dowd, pittsburgh

League Book Fair at Joseph Beth Saturday!

Come to Joseph Beth Booksellers in the South Side Works this Saturday, March 14 for a book fair and fundraiser. When you present our coupon (which you can find here) at the register, they will donate 20% of your purchase to us! How cool is that?

They’re open between 10 AM and 10 PM, and we’ll be there tabling and giving away baked goods between 12pm and 9pm that day. So come on down after the St. Patrick’s Day parade, buy books, and help empower the youth vote at the same time.

Tags: book fair, fundraiser, joseph beth

The RNC is getting a Hip-Hop makeover

As a follow-up to our recent post about hip-hop’s important role in making politics engaging, yesterday our friend Carolyn pointed out there was an article in The Washington Times that indicates the newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele realizes that hip-hop is a force to be reckoned with — and a necessary one for the promotion of his party.

“We need messengers to really capture that region - young, Hispanic, black, a cross section … We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-surburban hip-hop settings.”

“It will be avant garde, technically,” he said. “It will come to table with things that will surprise everyone - off the hook.”

Though the hip-hop genre and culture has certainly grown in popularity to become more widely popular , I am wondering how artists and fans alike will respond to any fabricated attempts to harness their support this way. While one could argue that the popularization of modern hip-hop has led to a level of commercialization that might see itself as “message for hire”, I think that the very reason activism through hip-hop has been a compelling force is because the artists have had the room to talk about what is on their mind — whether it’s glorifying booty and bling or condemning violence and kids dying on the street.

As hip-hop is deliberately co-opted more and more as the best tool to target young and minority voters, will fans see through it all? Will they care?

-Carly

Tags: civic engagment, hip-hop, message, Michael S. Steele, minority, Pennsylvania, political, politics, RNC, vote, voters, Youth

Full Disclosure: the Economic Stimulus website

So today the President signed into law the hard-fought Economic Stimulus Package legislation, allowing for $787 BILLION dollars to be poured into projects that are designed to keep or make 3.5 MILLION jobs.

Those are big, fat numbers, and it’s certainly been a hot topic for debate whether it will work to boost or stabilize the economy or not.  We here at the PA League, we’re not economic experts, so hell if we know.  But what we DO know is that this is certainly the first time we, the people, will be provided with so much accessible, transparent information on where our money is going.

Check out www.recovery.gov, designed to explain the plans for the economic stimulus, give a timeline for how the money is to be allocated and reported on, and eventually report back on “how, when, and where it is spent.”  (And if you are either feeling really smart or really masochistic, you can also read the full bill as written.)

Having the background info for how the stimulus plan was put together is useful, but what will be really exciting is the updates on how the plan is actually working out.

And it’s a good-looking site too, with clear infographics (timelines, proportional circles, bar graphs– see below) that make some general comparisons at-a-glance.

If only we could have something as transparent for other federal, state, and local arenas of public spending and campaign contributions, we could pretty much count on a cleaner government and better opportunity for public discourse.

I’ll admit it; I’m impressed.  I hope it’s all it could be: a portal for the everyman –not just political in-the-knows — to better understand, participate, and give feedback to their elected government.  We’ll see; this might be THE example for government transparency efforts to come.

-Carly

Tags: accountability, economic stimulus, election, government, infographics, pa league of young voters, Pennsylvania, pittsburgh, politics, president barack obama, timeline, transparency, vote, Youth

Hip Hop and Civic Engagement

We at the PA League have always believed that hip hop culture can be an excellent way to introduce people who are not deeply engaged to political thinking. When I was a kid we listened to Public Enemy, in this past year even Young Jeezy, not known for his political outspokenness, brought us a track about politics and hosted an inauguration party.

Starting last year our sister org, the PA League’s Education Fund,has been the fiscal sponsor for the MC competition Rhyme Calisthenics to help advance the connection between rap music and civic engagement, visited hip hop shows all over, including of rapper and activist Immortal Technique, and participated in the Hip Hop Caucus. Nothing we did with hip-hop, however, reached the heights of Pittsburgh’s Mayor after the Super Bowl.

More »

Tags: Civic engagement, civil rights, freestyle, hip-hop, pa league of young voters education fund, Pennsylvania, pittsburgh, politics, Voting, Youth

Bad News:

The Violence Policy Center released a new report:  Pennsylvania has the highest black homicide rate of any state in the union. From their press release

“The annual study, Black Homicide Victimization in the United States: An Analysis of 2006 Homicide Data, uses 2006 data–the most recent data available from the FBI–and ranks the 50 states according to their black homicide victimization rates. The study found overwhelmingly that firearms, usually handguns, were the weapon of choice in the homicides. This is the third year that the VPC has issued the report and the second time in three years that Pennsylvania has topped the ranking.”

For PENNSYLVANIA, the study found that in 2006:

• There were 490 black homicide victims, resulting in a homicide rate of 36.86 per 100,000. Of these, 441 were male and 49 were female.
• For homicides in which the weapon used could be identified, 87 percent of black victims (414 out of 475) were killed with guns. Of these, 90 percent (372 victims) were known to be killed with handguns. There were 26 victims killed with firearms where the type of gun was not stated. There were 26 victims killed with knives or other cutting instruments, 17 victims killed by bodily force, and 8 victims killed by a blunt object.

• For homicides involving black victims for which the victim to offender relationship could be identified, 85 percent of black victims (173 out of 204) were murdered by someone they knew. Thirty-one victims were killed by strangers.”

Read the full report here:  http://www.vpc.org/press/0901homicide.htm

There is no single policy or piece of legislation that will prevent this kind of terror and tragedy.  This is something that calls for community and government intervention working hand in hand.

Tags: deaths, gun, handguns, homicide, murder rate, Pennsylvania, philadelphia, pittsburgh, violence

Giving Thanks for Bus Service

It’s almost Thanksgiving, and we have been traveling around Allegheny County for the past several days with an open letter to the Port Authority of Allegheny County, the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85, and the County Executive to urge them to find a solution to the contract dispute that was threatening a strike as soon as next Monday.

We talked to more than four hundred people who rely on the bus for school, or for work, or to get medical care, or to visit family. Many would have no other option to get them where they need to go, if PAT stopped running.

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Tags: public transit