The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is forming a panel to provide "expert advice" on the ecological impacts resulting from mountaintop removal mining and valley fill practices.  The panel will report to the EPA's Science Advisory Board.

The EPA's request states that it is "seeking individuals with nationally recognized expertise, experience, knowledge, and field experience in the following disciplinary areas associated with mountaintop mining and valley-fill operations: aquatic ecology, aquatic toxicology, hydrogeology, water quality, mining engineering, ecosystem restoration, inorganic chemistry, freshwater ecological risk assessment, and systems ecology."

Nominations should be submitted in electronic format.  Visit the science advisory board website, www.epa.gov/sab and click on the ‘‘Nomination of Experts’’ link on the left hand side.  Information that must be provided to nominate someone includes the nominee's contact information, area(s) of expertise, resume, sources of recent grants and/or contracts, and a biographical sketch with information outlined on the website.  Information about how individuals will be chosen and announced is also on the site.

In the last few days, KFTC members have continued to lead an energetic field campaign to connect with people on the issue of restoring voting rights to former felons who have served their debt to society. 

Tayna Fogle led a strong voting rights table at the big Lexington Recovery Rally on Friday all afternoon.  Many Lexington recovery houses, including the Chrysalis House as well as our friends at People Advocating Recovery, came together to make the event happen.  Several hundred people participated.  We talked to many people in drug recovery, many of who were former felons.  We registered a few voters and about a hundred people signed postcards in favor of restoring voting rights to former felons.

 
After that, we visited the Kentucky Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials (KBC-LEO) at their big annual meeting in Covington  We got to talk about voting rights with 25 African American elected leaders from across the state, many of whom were very enthusiastic about getting involved in the  issue.  On the way home, we visited Grant County (part of Senator Thayer's district) to open a dialogue with local activists about voting rights.  We spoke to the County Judge-Executive, and several others and will expand our efforts there in the future.

Yesterday, KFTC members and allies had a fantastic Voting Rights Stomp in Louisville.

 

We also attended a weekend-long leadership retreat for Georgetown College students, talking learning a lot about community organizing, social justice, and our voting rights campaign.

It was a key space for us to build relationships with student leaders from groups like Student Government, the College Republicans, and various fraternities and sororities.

Our momentum will continue next week with a full calendar, including a meeting with Senator Worley, a Voting Rights meeting in Georgetown on Thursday, a Theater of the Opressed workshop in Louisville, and the Festival of the Horse this weekend.

Voting Rights Stomp in Louisville is a success

Is there really any better way to start your Saturday than to start it working for social justice? Yea, I didn't think so, and apparently the same goes for some 30 other people who turned out at the Presbyterian Community Center in Louisville to canvass about restoration of voting rights for former felons and to register voters.

After a brief training on door-to-door work, volunteers split into teams to canvass the California, Shelby Park, Smoketown, and Phoenix Hill neighborhoods. My partner and I had some really good conversations when we went door-to-door. Most people we met were unaware that Kentucky is just one of two states that permanently disenfranchises former felons and were eager to talk with us and sign our petition. Other volunteers not only collected petition signatures, but also registered voters and gave out applications for former felons to have their voting rights restored. Martha Flack, a Jefferson County KFTC member, was excited to have given out a couple of applications and registered three young men who were just old enough to vote.

The fun didn't end with canvassing. Noon kicked off the Restore the Vote rally back at the Presbyterian Community Center where people enjoyed some tasty free food and heard stories from former felons who have gotten their rights restored. One man talked about the different ways he's felt he had no power or control as a former felon, saying, "There are situations where you feel you're out of control, but you have the control and power to register to vote and to apply to get your rights restored." Near the rally's end, some 200 people in the neighborhood had signed a petition supporting restoration.

Several groups worked together to organize this great allied event: Making Connections, Jobs with Justice, KFTC, Women in Transition, the Presbyterian Community Center, The Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, and the American Civil Liberties Union. Getting out and meeting folks who work with other social justice organizations was great, and my hope is that we'll all go Stomping again real soon.
-- Beth Bissmeyer

in today's Herald-Leader because of budget cuts to the state Division of Mine Reclamation and Enforcement.

The state also had to return $1 million to the federal government because it didn't match a federal grant for mine inspections.  It might have to return another $800,000 more.

This lost federal money certainly isn't the only cost of our chronic need for revenue reforms.  Tom Fitzgerald, of the Kentucky Resources Council, says that mines that contaminate our headwater streams contaminated them for longer because of missed inspections--another way that our outdated tax structure is costing us our water, health, and public safety.

Census Worker Found Hanged in Kentucky

It's truly tragic, but hard to know what this means politically - an indication of rising anti-government sentiment in Kentucky starting to turn violent?  Compounding challenges with getting an accurate count in the census (already difficult in many areas), leading to less funding and representation for places like Clay County?

This begs for some kind of public call for sanity - a vigil or some way for us to show our sadness at this turn of events on a number of levels.

Below are some live notes about today's hearing on the Restoration of Voting Rights Amendment (House Bill 70) before the Joint Taskforce on Elections, Constitutional Amendments and Intergovernmental Affairs.

12:55 p.m. - KFTC members and our allies in the Restoration of Voting Rights Coalition are gathering in the committee room right now.  We make up a majority of the audience at the moment, but the room is only about 1/3 full.

1:03 p.m. - Senators and House members are slowly making their way into the meeting room.  They don't seem to be in any hurry to start on time.  There are about 9 of them here right now.

1:06 p.m. - I just got passed an agenda for the meeting. It looks like our bill is going to be the 2nd of 3 bills heard this afternoon.

1:08 p.m. - The hearing has begun.  The chair has pushed the discussion on our bill to the end of the meeting since a presenter for one of the other bills has to leave early.

1:10 p.m. - Secretary of State Trey Grayson is presenting a bill he is proposing to allow for early voting.

1:31 p.m. - It looks like we have about 16 Senators and Representatives here now.

1:51 p.m. - Grayson has finished giving his testimony and now Sarah Jackson with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance is presenting information about how new candidates for political office can become official candidates.

2:06 p.m. - We've started!  Rep Crenshaw is explaining the bill and how it would restore people's voting rights.

2:09 p.m. - Father Delehanty with the Catholic Conference is now giving his testimony.  He is explaining that a number of other faith organizations support the bill including the KY Council of Churches.

2:11 p.m. - "Exercising the right to vote is a sacred and moral obligation"

2:15 p.m. - Public Advocate Ed Monahan is presenting now.  Voting rights correlates with a lower recidivism rate.

2:18 p.m. - Tina Halbig with the League of Women Voters, 1/4 in the African Americans in KY cannot vote.   The UN supports re-enfranchisement.  "Voting is the most fundamental expression of citizenship."

2:25 p.m. - Raoul Cunningham with the Kentucky NAACP.  Even though we have passed the bill twice before the House, the Senate has never heard the bill.

2:29 p.m. -They are taking questions now.  Rep Fischer: This bill excludes murderers, but soes this it also exclude attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, etc?  Crenshaw: It would not exclude them.

2:34 p.m. - Rep Fischer: Why shouldn't Beshear just issue an executive order to fix this instead of having a constitutional amendment? Crenshaw: That would not eliminate the issue, future governors could rescind that order.

2:36 p.m. - Rep Gibson: Asking for some clarification on our numbers.

2:40 p.m. - Sen. Carroll: We have changed our laws to create more felonies (and more non-voters) in the state of KY.  "I support the amendment"

2:42 p.m. - The meeting has adjourned.

KFTC members and friends in Northern Kentucky met with Senator Jack Westwood today about our campaign to restore voting rights to former felons who have served their debt to society. 

KFTC member Tayna Fogle scheduled the event, and included over a dozen others, including several former felons and others in substance abuse recovery who told their own personal stories about recovery and the importance of being connected to the community through voting.

I'm a crime and punishment conservative... but my point of view on this issue has changed a lot," said Westwood, "and you could probably thank Tayna for that."

"It's okay to be tough on crime," countered Charlotte Wethington of Northern KY PAR.  "But these aren't criminals.  They're people who have served their time and it doesn't make sense to put up another roadblock between them and recovery." 

Westwood nodded.

As many people started to tell their stories, the sense of family and community in the room was clear.  Eyes teared up and voices cracked sometimes, but everyone said a little about themselves and many people told powerful stories about family, the road to recovery, challenges, and a need to be a part of the greater community and to make a difference.

We are an empowered group of people.  We have our stories and they're powerful - and no one can take them away from us."  - Charlotte Wethington

"Everyone should be able to voice their opinion.  Everyone." - Jessica Marksberry

"I was using drugs and didn't know how to stop, so I called the police on myself... It's been a long road, but now I'm learning how to be a daughter and a friend and a citizen.  Voting is a part of that.  It can be hard to do the right thing, but when you do it, you should be able to vote.  - Amber Woosley

"Recovery is the hardest thing I've ever done.  This place saved my life" - Nikki Fox

"I am a felon with hopes of being a FORMER felon soon, and it's really important to me to be involved in the community.....and I am,..but not fully because I can't vote.  If I could, I think I could help make my community a better place." - Sheri Hyden

Senator Westwood was clearly impressed, taking a lot of time to hear stories and connect with people.

I'm proud that there are people here fighting to get the right to vote.  Not enough people take voting seriously and I think it says a lot about you that you do." - Senator Jack Westwood

In the end, Senator Westwood said that he was "highly likely" to vote in favor of our voting rights legislation.

This legislative meeting was part of a broader effort to encourage our members to meet with legislators outside of the General Assembly - particularly Senators who are key to our voting rights campaign.  So far, we've done a great job, with multiple meetings most weeks, but there's a lot more to go.

Please consider setting up a meeting with your local KY Senator and/ or Representative.  Work with your local KFTC Organizer to coordinate the meeting and bring other members into the process too.

You can get contact information for your local Senator and Representative on the LRC's website Here.

Special thanks to the Brighton Recovery Center for Women for hosting the meeting and to many residents for participating.

NOTE - Were still having our Voting Rights Hearing tomorrow in Frankfort at 1pm Eastern time.  We'll be live-blogging from the hearing, so please visit our blog to follow-along.

Kentuckians For The Commonwealth is continuing to use the social networking site Facebook to better keep in touch with our members and friends, encourage action, and to connect with new people.

We've actively used a Facebook Group since early 2007, but it became too big to use because of Facebook's limitations on mass messages to especially large groups.  It has over 7,500 members now.

We started to test out a new system through Facebook called a "Page" earlier this year - something we thought would be better for communicating with large numbers of people while encouraging lots of conversation and exchanges. 

Incredibly, our Facebook Page has grown by leaps and bounds over the last 3 weeks, going from 1,300 members to over 5,000 members as of today.

But what's more exciting is the conversations our blog posts (which are automatically re-posted on Facebook) are touching off, creating a space for people to learn from one-another and debate issues.

If you're on Facebook, please check out our page and invite your friends to join as well.

As the bill from Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus makes its debut without even as much as a public option, a new study finds that 45,000 Americans die every year due to a lack of health insurance--one person every 12 minutes.  Now is time to take action for single-payer, says Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program. 

In an interview with Democracy Now!, Woolhandler challenges the idea that Baucus's bill represents any kind of reform.  "This bill is a dream for the insurance industry....Our Congress and Senate needs to confront our private health insurance industry...We need to get rid of the insurance industry, take that administrative savings and use it in a medicare for all plan that would cover all necessary services."  And what about the co-ops, that are supposed to serve as a substitute for the already-anemic public option?  Wollhandler says the notion that the co-ops can compete with the health insurance industry is like "sending a pee-wee football league in with the NFL." 

Woolhandler calls supporters of single-payer to take action.  "This is still a democracy, and we need to be holding our representatives' feet to the fire."

Here are some resources to learn more about legislation that introduces single-payer health care, including calls to action to support single-payer:

• From PNHP, more information about Rep. Weiner's single-payer amendment to HR 3200, and ways to contact your representatives to support this amendment.  Rep. Weiner's amendment would replace the language of the House bill with the language of Conyers's HR 676.
  
• From PNHP's blog, more info about the Senate's single-payer bill by Sen. Bernie  Sanders.
  

• From Democracy Now!, an interview with Rep. Kucinich about Rep. Kucinich's amendment that would allow states to implement their own single-payer systems.