Reminder: My Civic Workout is seeking guest writers! If there’s a topic you or your organization wants to help us cover, email us at info@mycivicworkout.com.
We’re done with taxes. (Hooray?) Now it’s time to get caught up on some items that might have gone under your radar with everything else in the news for the past few weeks (or months, or years).
The Florida Senate has just passed a bill that would allow for teachers in the state to carry guns in schools. The Florida House is set to take up the bill next.
Your task is to sign a petition by the Advancement Project (supported by the SEIU and NAACP) urging the governor to veto any such bill. Are you a Florida resident? Contact your state officials and tell them to oppose the bill.
The White House is trying to include a new citizenship question on the 2020 Census. It has lied about the reasons for including the question, and this move could undermine both the Census’ integrity and protections for minority groups. The Supreme Court has agreed to take up a lawsuit on the matter. The House Oversight Committee has also been questioning the Secretary of Commerce on the citizenship question. Check the membership to see if your representative is on the committee, and urge them to continue pressing back against the White House.
This Thursday marks the fifth anniversary of the start of the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, While thousands of lead-containing pipes have been replaced in the city, thousands more still need inspecting and replacing. The city has a helpful page for those interested in helping with donations of water, money, or volunteer time.
Have you been seeing all those headlines about the Mueller report? Not sure what the takeaway from all of it is? Catch up on the findings—what Mueller’s report says, what it doesn’t say, what is known, and what is still redacted, through this write-up by Andrew Prokop at Vox:
[W]hat the report reveals is that Trump had ambitions for a lucrative Russian business deal, he was eager to “find” his opponent’s emails, and he apparently heard something about WikiLeaks. However, Mueller discloses no evidence of any personal involvement from Trump pertaining to Russian contacts from George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Carter Page, or Jeff Sessions. He found “no documentary evidence” that Trump was aware of his son’s meeting with a Russian lawyer beforehand...Rather than any super-spy conspiracy involving the highest levels of the Trump campaign, then, the Mueller report seems to tell a story of a series of disorganized contacts, missed opportunities—and, occasionally, outright bullshit.
