PLI Bulletin

Hate Crimes, Education Messaging, Say Progressive, and More

Posted on August 2, 2018

Hate Crimes Prevention Act: Since the 2016 election, we have seen a wave of violence and threats against anyone who disagrees with the Radical Right. This will likely get worse. Right now, 45 states have some version of a Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Our model helps ensure that your jurisdiction protects the full range of hate crimes targets and includes civil litigation. Uniquely, our model covers hate crimes against abortion providers and patients, and against immigrants, who are in special peril today.

Call yourself a progressive: If you don’t label yourself, your opponents will label you. And in 2018, they will call you a “liberal,” a “socialist,” or something even farther afield. Progressive is popular, and more important, it’s not polarizing. Our base accepts or prefers the term progressive while you can generally define it yourself for persuadable Americans. For more, read the latest IdeaLog, our blog intended to raise eyebrows and engage minds.

Voicing Our Values—How to Talk About Education: This is the sixth segment of our podcast series, which you can listen to at your convenience. This one explains messages and narratives you should use to promote or defend progressive education policies. To listen to or download the podcast, click here.

Occupational licensing can be an unjustified barrier to work: In many cases, individuals are barred from occupational licenses based on requirements that have become obsolete. The National Conference of State Legislatures recently published a report about those barriers to work.

Why U.S. Real Estate Remains a Foreign Investor Favorite: Who owns your state or locality, really? Because foreign investors—especially from Russian and China—are buying American real estate at a furious pace.

More than 165 model bills on our website: Are you looking for some good policies to sponsor in the next legislative session? The model legislation section of our website provides more than 165 bills on a very wide range of topics, from civil rights, environment and health to taxation, voting and wages.