PLI Bulletin

CROWN Act, Amendment Strategy, Tax Abatements and More

Posted on March 11, 2020

CROWN Act: So far, five states have enacted the CROWN (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair) Act, which provides that, for purposes of state/local law, illegal racial discrimination includes discrimination based on wearing a hairstyle that is common to people of color.

In red states, cities and counties, prepare an amendment strategy: It serves two purposes. The first is to educate people about the merits of your policy solution. The second is more important: to create the conditions for popular progressive issues to become powerful election issues. For more explanation, read the latest IdeaLog, our blog intended to raise eyebrows and engage minds.

Post-Expert Democracy—Why nobody trusts elites anymore: Since the 2016 election, we have entered a dramatically different political era, according to Harvard Kennedy School Professor Archon Fung, where traditional elites and experts in politics, media and academia are being ignored by a large percentage of Americans. Click here for Professor Fung’s podcast.

Republicans believe coronavirus news coverage is exaggerated: A recent poll by Axios-Survey Monkey finds that 62 percent of Republicans believe news reports about coronavirus are “generally exaggerated,” which is double the 31 percent of Democrats who feel that way. The beliefs of Independents roughly track Democrats.

See how much revenue your state or city has lost to tax abatements: The nonprofit Good Jobs First has updated its Tax Break Tracker, which allows you to search for tax abatement disclosures from among 20,000 entries extracted from officially-filed Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs).

Updated Repro Rights Report: There are now 70 proactive abortion rights bills introduced in the 2020 sessions as well as 55 others which carried over from 2019. See the latest update of our Repro Rights Report here.