October, 30 2020, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Don Owens, dowens@lawyerscommittee.org, c. (202) 934-1880
Marc Banks, NAACP, dbanks@naacpnet.org, (443) 608-4073
Lon Walls, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, lwalls@wallscomm.com, (301) 996-1669
Phoebe Plagens, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, pplagens@naacpldf.org, (212) 965-2235
Teresa Candori, National Urban League, tcandori@nul.org, (212) 558-5362
National Black Civil Rights Groups to Gather Ahead of Expected Push to Vote on Election Day 2020
Black leaders will provide updates for increased election participation and voting that is free from harassment or disenfranchisement.
WASHINGTON
Leaders of some of the nation's largest and longest-tenured civil rights and Black empowerment organizations will gather on Friday, Oct. 30 at 11:00 a.m. EDT, for a telephone press conference to discuss how they are mobilizing voters in states and what to expect on Election Day in communities nationwide.
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, NAACP, National Urban League, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation have all been on the frontlines of fighting voter suppression while encouraging Black people and other communities of color to get involved in the election process and express their voices at the ballot box.
WHO: Kristen Clarke, president and executive director, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Melanie Campbell, president/CEO, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation
Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
Derrick Johnson, president and CEO, NAACP
Marc Morial, president and CEO, National Urban League
WHEN: Friday, Oct. 30, at 11:00 a.m. EDT
WHERE: (877) 876-9173
Verbal Conference ID: "BLACK VOTERS"
The Lawyers' Committee is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to enlist the private bar's leadership and resources in combating racial discrimination and the resulting inequality of opportunity - work that continues to be vital today.
(202) 662-8600LATEST NEWS
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Defenders of climate and the rule of law blasted the Trump administration on Friday for using what one consumer campaigner called a "phony" emergency to wage lawfare agaist states trying to hold Big Oil financially accountable for the planetary crisis.
On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed complaints against New York and Vermont over their climate superfund laws, which empower states to seek financial compensation from fossil fuel companies to help cover the costs of climate mitigation. The burning of fossil fuels is the main driver of human-caused global heating.
Separately, the DOJ also sued Hawaii and Michigan "to prevent each state from suing fossil fuel companies in state court to seek damages for alleged climate change harms."
"The use of the United States Department of Justice to fight on behalf of the fossil fuel industry is deeply disturbing."
Hours later, Hawaii became the 10th state to sue Big Oil for lying about the climate damage caused by fossil fuels. The Aloha State's lawsuit targets ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, and other corporations for their "decadeslong campaign of deception to discredit the scientific consensus on climate change" and sow public doubt about the existence and main cause of the crisis.
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The DOJ on Thursday cited President Donald Trump's April 8 executive order, " Protecting American Energy From State Overreach," which affirms the president's commitment "to unleashing American energy, especially through the removal of all illegitimate impediments to the identification, development, siting, production, investment in, or use of domestic energy resources—particularly oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, geothermal, biofuel, critical mineral, and nuclear energy resources."
Trump also signed a day-one edict declaring a "national energy emergency" in service of his campaign pledge to "drill, baby, drill" for climate-heating fossil fuels. The "emergency" has been invoked to fast-track fossil fuel permits, including for extraction projects on public lands.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the DOJ's Environment and Natural Resources Division said in a statement Thursday, "When states seek to regulate energy beyond their constitutional or statutory authority, they harm the country's ability to produce energy and they aid our adversaries."
"The department's filings seek to protect Americans from unlawful state overreach that would threaten energy independence critical to the well-being and security of all Americans," Gustafson added.
Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen, on Friday accused the Trump administration of "using a phony energy emergency declaration to illegally attack state climate and clean energy laws."
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"The new PIN code requirement will be impossible for many beneficiaries to meet," according to the analysis from CBPP released Friday. "Many seniors and people with disabilities lack internet service, computers or smartphones, or the technological savvy to navigate SSA's online services."
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A judge told an Illinois man Friday that his hate-fueled murder of six-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi in October 2023 was "brutal and heinous" as she sentenced him to 53 years in prison.
The sentence was handed down three months after Joseph Czuba, 73, was found guilty of murdering the Palestinian-American kindergartner, who lived with his family in two bedrooms they rented from Czuba in Plainfield Township, Illinois.
Prosecutors found that Czuba became "paranoid and violent" after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023 and as Israel's bombardment of Gaza's population of 2.3 million Palestinians began in retaliation.
Alfayoumi's mother, Hanan Shaheen, testified during Czuba's trial that he had attacked her first before moving on to stab her son 26 times. Czuba told Shaheen before the attack that the family had to leave their home because they were Muslim.
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Yousef also looked directly at Czuba and demanded that he say something to the family "for peace of mind," but Czuba did not speak during the hearing.
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