Ordinances for Localities, Guns in Schools, Keys to Persuasion and More

Posted on September 1, 2016

Help Drug Offenders Act: A 1996 federal law allows states to decide if people who are convicted of drug felonies should be eligible for food stamps or TANF. There is a recent trend toward helping ex-offenders. Just this year, Alaska and Georgia passed bills to allow ex-offenders to access food stamps, and a bill to allow TANF passed a Delaware committee. Model bills and fact sheets can be found here.

20 progressive ordinances for cities, towns and counties: Most of the larger localities across our nation are controlled by progressives or moderates. There is quite a lot that can be done and this column lists 20 ideas for local legislation, providing hyperlinks to model bills for each. Read the list on IdeaLog, our blog intended to raise eyebrows and engage minds.

Poll-tested method to rally the public for an activist government: Wednesday, September 7 @3pm Eastern, 2pm Central, 1pm Mountain, Noon Pacific. Polls show that Americans don’t actually hate government. It’s a matter of message framing. If you move away from government as an abstraction and show how it can enforce fair rules on everyone, people will support the progressive side. This webinar, based on Lake Research Partners polling, is similar to one we presented on May 18 and a workshop in Washington, DC we presented on July 8. If you missed both of those, register for the webinar here.

NELP defense of “ban the box” legislation: Ban the Box laws prohibit employers from asking job applicants about criminal convictions in their initial job application in most circumstances. It’s a prohibition endorsed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In answer to suggestions that Ban the Box “does more harm than good,” the National Employment Law Project published a recent policy brief rebutting those arguments.

Against guns in schools and colleges: Students at the University of Texas at Austin made news recently protesting the carrying of guns on campus by carrying sex toys instead. For a briefing on the issue of guns in schools and colleges, see this page from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Short booklet on the keys to persuasion: PLI recently published a short messaging booklet explaining the key elements of persuasion—why we recommend specific language for certain issues. This article explains confirmation bias, why people’s minds are hard to change, negative triggers, and some simple rules to maximize your ability to persuade.

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