Last weekend, digging around in my usual online news haunts, I came upon an article in the Huffington Post that caught my eye. It told of a Maryland state legislator who was re-introducing a bill to prevent employers from doing credit checks on prospective employees. The idea behind the bill is that if credit checks are a norm in the hiring process, poor people have yet one more obstacle to overcome. This is the kind of law that's right up my alley -- it points toward leveling the playing field for everyone, while so many other laws these days (like the new Republican US House's obsession with abortion, or new school board decisions in North Carolina that purposefully re-segregate their systems) are specifically aimed at keeping poor and disadvantaged people down. Hell, just look at our tax code -- specifically designed to keep the rich getting richer.
So when I read about this new bill in Maryland I did a quick search and discovered that this Maryland legislator, Kirill Reznik, has previously posted about this bill right here on DailyKos. And when I saw that similar laws have been passed in Hawaii, Illinois, Oregon and Washington, I thought, "New York needs this." So I wrote to my New York State Senator. Now, I am very lucky to have a great state senator. Sen. Daniel Squadron is young, progressive, and totally all about government reform (in good ways!). So I fired off an email to his office -- it read:
Dear Senator Squadron,
I recently read about a few other states passing laws making it illegal for employers to obtain credit checks on prospective employees. These laws have exemptions for banks and financial institutions as well as police, security, and other institutions that might legitimately require such background checks.
With so many people plunged into credit card debt (or bankruptcy!) because of unemployment or lack of healthcare, it's obvious that those folks shouldn't be judged for employment on their credit score. They should be judged solely on their ability to do the job at hand. We need an even playing field to get as many qualified people -- especially working class and poor New Yorkers -- back to work.
Would you consider sponsoring or co-sponsoring such legislation for New York?
Many thanks for all you do and good luck for 2011!
Now even though I do this kind of thing with some frequency -- you know, shooting off a quick note to my Senators or even to the President, I'm rather cynical about it. And so much of our political process is designed to keep us all cynical, so much is designed to kill our impulses to participate. So I send these emails and letters (and occasional phone calls) out into the political ether more for my own therapeutic purposes than for any belief that I'm actually able to affect anything in any way.
But sometimes expectations are not met. And this week I had a call from Senator Squadron's New York office. It was Jordan Levine calling, Squadron's Constituent Liaison for New York State. He was calling just to let me know they'd gotten my email, had read it with interest, discussed it among a few staff members, and were bringing the issue to the Senator's legislative team.
This means next-to-nothing, of course. I mean, I assume Squadron and his office have laid out a particular agenda and checklist of issues they want to address this session. And of course they must be inundated with ideas and requests from constituents (believe me, their office has received plenty of email from me about marriage equality). And this nice staffer more or less made that clear to me. But they just wanted to let me know that the email was received by a real human being. And wow, it is so encouraging to know that someone even read it, let alone discussed it with others. And if it can be slotted into actual work generated by this one senator's office, fabulous. But even if it goes nowhere else but the digital trash bin, I know that Senator Squadron and his staff are listening, and I know that they have one more example of their constituents wanting something to be done for the poor and working classes.
So the only reason I'm writing this diary is to say to anyone who, like myself, has ever felt that participation in this political system is pointless: take heart. There are some dedicated public servants out there who need us to keep sending those emails and making those calls. The more our representatives hear from progressives the better. As discouraging as politics can sometimes be, tiny events like this one can be a great reminder that it's worth staying involved.
And if you need guidance, here are some tips for being in touch.