It’s Time to set FCNL Priorities for 115th Congress
Input to FCNL is due from our Meeting by April 15, 2016 on legislative priorities for the upcoming 115th Congress. Your individual inputs are requested; please note them on the back page of this form and put them in the box on PSJ table by Sunday, Feb 28, 2016. Peace and Social Justice Committee will collect all submissions and seek to identify the sense of the Meeting submissions, and will present a draft statement to the March Meeting for Business.
In November 2013, the FCNL General Committee adopted a Statement of Legislative Policy which guides the long term policy (see below). Find the Policy Statement at www.fcnl.org Priorities guide FCNL staff for each 2 year session of Congress, but are based upon the more comprehensive Legislative Policy Statement.
For your reference, below are the priorities our meeting selected for the current 114th Congress, and also the priorities as adopted by FCNL General Committee for the current 114th Congress.
FCNL Priorities of Boulder Friends Meeting for current 114th Congress,
We seek a World Free of War:
- Stop the use of drones and targeted extra judicial assassinations
- Reduce the military, nuclear weapons, and homeland security budgets and use the savings to better meet human needs.
- Increased peaceful prevention, enhanced diplomacy to prevent/reduce/resolve conflicts
- Repeal Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUFM); repeal War Powers Act
We seek a Society with Equity and Justice for All:
- Reduce the power of money in elections; including restraining corporate power and money; restore voting rights and stop partisan gerrymandering
- End privatized prisons; reform policing, judicial and prison systems to provide unbiased law enforcement, fair trials, humane treatment of prisoners, lower prison populations, eliminate solitary confinement, prisoner rehabilitation, education/job training.
- Tax reform to eliminate corporate loopholes, reduce income inequality
- Limit government surveillance (TSA, NSA); make intelligence accountable
We seek a Community Where Every Person’s Potential May Be Fulfilled
- Establish a system that provides affordable and effective health care for all.
- Immigration reform
- Right relationship and protect rights with first people/nations; implement U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
We seek an Earth Restored
- Promote awareness and enact legislation to reduce the causes of climate change
- Eliminate subsidies and tax breaks for oil, gas, coal and unsustainable agricultural practices
- Increased regulation on fossil fuels and hydraulic fracking by more EPA powers
- Promotion and creative incentives for energy conservation, efficiencies, and renewable sustainable non-nuclear energy sources.
Final Adopted 114th Congress FCNL Priorities, 22 November 2014
The Friends Committee on National Legislation seeks to bring spiritual values and Friends’ testimonies to bear on public policy decisions. FCNL solicited the views and concerns of Quaker meetings, churches and organizations around the country to help discern the following priorities for our lobbying and public education work during the 114th Congress (2015-2016):
· Advance peacebuilding and the peaceful prevention and resolution of violent conflict
· Reduce military spending and militarized responses to global and domestic situations
· Promote nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation
· Support solutions to mitigate and adapt to climate disruption
· Reduce the influence of money in politics
· Address poverty, reduce income inequality, and promote economic justice
· Advance policies that reduce mass incarceration
· Continue our witness and advocacy on Native American issues
· Promote fair, humane, and demilitarized immigration policies
FCNL’s work will be based on legislative opportunities, specific expertise, leadings, and available resources. In addition, The World We Seek (FCNL’s policy statement) gives FCNL the flexibility to respond to crises and to other important legislative opportunities, as way opens.
The General Committee calls upon its members and welcomes other Friends and like-minded people to work on these priorities. Many other deeply held concerns will continue to receive attention from individual Friends, monthly meetings and churches, yearly meetings, and other Quaker organizations. Working together to find solutions to complex problems, we find our spiritual experience deepening as we seek divine guidance, ask for renewed strength and act with hope.
Your Next steps for FCNL priorities for
the upcoming 115th Congress (2017-2018) –
Please provide your top five legislative priorities in the space below; ranking them in order of priority. Please submit this form by no later than Sunday February 28, 2016 by placing the completed form in the box on PSJ table. The Boulder Meeting Peace and Social Justice Committee and FCNL Representative will compile all of the submissions, seek the sense of the meeting, and prepare a draft set of priorities for discernment and action of the full meeting at the March 2016 business meeting.
In the fall, after the 2016 elections, the General Committee of FCNL, its governing body, will review Policy Committee submissions of priorities submitted from Friends from all over the USA, and prepare a draft. The General Committee will discern a final collective statement of legislative priorities in November 2016 to guide FCNL staff for the 115th Congress and associated political action.
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It is optional, but FCNL requests that you put your age group with your submission. Under 20 ____; 20+ to 40 ______; 40+ to 60 ______; 60+ ______
Thanks to all of Boulder Meeting, and particularly Young Friends who participate in the priorities process.
Submitted by
Richard Andrews
FCNL Representative, Boulder Meeting