– Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities – (S810). Health Care Financing Committee.

– Paid Sick Leave – Now in the Ways and Means Committee (Released by Health Care Financing Committee).

– Protect Tenants and Victims of Predatory Foreclosures. (S2355) “Act to Stabilize Neighborhoods”  On April 29, 2010, passed unanimously in the Senate.  Will now move to House.

– Include Transgender Individuals in Protections of  State Anti-Discrimination Law – (Budget Amendment #764) – Joint Committee on Judiciary

Budget Amendment #764 would add transgender individuals to the Commonwealth’s existing anti-discrimination law.   Senator Cynthia Creem is one of the many co-sponsors of the bill and is co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee considering the bill.

The “paid sick days” bill has now been sent to House Ways and Means. Let your legislator know this is a very important piece of legislation.   For added information on this issue look on this website at JALSA Pages: JALSA Issues: “Paid Sick Days for all Workers”.

JALSA has signed onto a letter to the Congress endorsing a bill that would strike the one-year filing deadline for asylum applications. Currently the Immigration and Nationality Act requires asylum requests to be filed within one year. Often refugees need more time to make sure other family members are away from danger.

Harvard Medical School Professor Emeritus Rashi Fein spoke on Friday, April 16 discussing Health Care Reform and what next steps do we take to improve health care.

250-300 people crowed the Great Hall of the State House to hear Lilly Ledbetter and Vickie Reggie Kennedy speak on Paid Sick Leave.   Governor Deval Patrick spoke to the crowd providing his first public support for the legislation.  The program was moderated by State AFL-CIO President Bob Haynes.  Speakers included employers who provided strong  support for paid sick leave.

Rabbi Barbara Penzner visited CLSA on Friday, April 9 to discuss the firing of the Hyatt housekeepers.  CLSA will consider what options are available for increasing public visibility and pressure on the Hyatt to reconsider the treatment of these workers.

A panel of three judges, including Judge Michael Boudin (presiding), Justice David Souter (formerly of the Supreme Court) and Judge Jeffrey Howard engaged with Harvey Silverglate, representing the original plaintiffs who were appealing the district court finding, and Bill Porter of the Attorney General’s office with David Guberman, representing the Commonwealth.  JALSA joined in an amicus brief with Armenian groups and the Irish Immigration Center arguing that the Department of Education had the right to determine what materials should be included in a Curriculum Guide established to carry out the legislative intent to teach about genocide in the schools.

When the initial legislation had been considered, our organizational leadership had urged the legislature to include a broad number of examples of genocide in the proposed curriculum so that students might study history of particular interest to their community.  As a result, the legislation had indicated that the study might include materials about the Armenian Genocide, the European Holocaust, the Cambodian Killing Fields, the Middle Passage of the African Slave Trade, and the Irish Potato Famine.  Turkish representatives wanted materials in the curriculum that argued that the Armenian experience during WWI was not an example of genocide but the result of the conflict.  The DOE had decided that denial materials should not be part of the Curriculum Guide.  The core question raised by the plaintiffs was whether the removal of the denial materials from the Curriculum Guide, possibly in response to political pressure, was a denial of constitutional rights.

An audio recording of the court proceedings will be available at http://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/

Click “Court Calendar,” and follow the links for the RSS feed of oral arguments.

Case name:  Griswold v. Driscoll.    Case should be decided by June.

Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development gave a thumbs up to the pending Paid Sick Day bill.  Now, quick progress is needed to move it through both houses by the end of the legislative term.  Calls to House Leadership about the importance of this bill would be very useful.

Enthusiastic audiences heard Nigel Savage at Temple Beth Zion and Cong. Dorshei Tzedek this weekend.  Members of Moishe/Kavod House, JALSA, Temple Shalom of Newton, TBZ, and Dorshei came together to listen to the HAZON leader and help build the Jewish Food Movement in Boston.   Immediate local steps include participation in CSA arrangements  (Community Supported Agriculture), support of the Nutrition Bill (H 4459) at the State Legislature (which includes provisions to encourage school purchase of local products), continued encouragement of workshops at different synagogues to encourage participation, and efforts to encourage local supermarkets to consider exploitation of workers as they determine where to purchase food.   The Nutrition Bill has been sent to Senate Ways and Means and JALSA members should talk to their senators to encourage swift movement of this legislation