United Methodist Women’s Legislative Agenda 2013

There are more than 100,000 members of United Methodist Women in Texas. At their annuallegislative conference, UMW members from all seven of Texas’ United Methodist Annual Conferences adopt a consensus legislative agenda reflecting their priority legislative concerns. United Methodist Women was established in 1865. United Methodist Women place particular emphasis on issues impacting the well-being of women, children and youth.

 

Texas United Methodist Women affirm the dedication of every member of the Texas Legislature. We thank you for your service to our state and we look forward to thanking you for your good work in the 83rd legislative session. We particularly look forward to thanking you for your action on the following issues, which we believe are crucial to our state’s wellbeing:

Water

We support lawmakers as they begin to address Texas’ long-term water needs. We urge lawmakers to prioritize our state’s water infrastructure investments around the primary principle of fair access to water for all Texans. We support current proposals to begin funding the water plan. We acknowledge the interaction between water and energy resources and encourage lawmakers to plan comprehensively for our water and energy future.

Education

The Legislature should affirm its constitutional obligation to provide high quality public education for the benefit all of its citizens. Critical legislative actions include restoring cuts, funding enrollment growth, not allowing the flow of public money to private schools, limiting statewide assessments and exploring alternatives to testing.

Predatory Lending

The Legislature should build on the foundation of sensible regulation of payday and auto-title lending established in 2011, and eliminate the cycle of debt through strategies such as limiting rollovers, regulating fees and allowing partial payments.

Medicaid

The Legislature should extend Medicaid to adults under 138 percent of the Federal Poverty Level.

Criminal Justice and Mental Health

We call on legislators to guarantee humane treatment for all Texans caught up in the state’s criminal justice system, especially the most vulnerable, including women, children and youth. We strongly urge the Legislature to increase access to mental health, substance abuse treatment, rehabilitation, and re-entry programs for offenders. We are concerned about disproportionately punitive treatment including prolonged administrative segregation, and we urge legislators to reward prudence and wisdom in ticketing, sentencing and incarceration of juveniles.

For more information about United Methodist Women in Texas or this legislative agenda, contact any of the following UMW Social Action Coordinators:

Lori Stafford 214-649-2233 lstaf@sbcglobal.net

Judy Wiggins 806-895-4648 wigginsjudy54@yahoo.com

Frances Curry 432-940-4587 jfcurry4586@gmail.com

Lois Shaw 830-257-3980 woodie123@windstream.net

Denise DuBois 979-575-4098 duboisdc@aol.com

Mary Helen Gracia 210-764-0522

Darlene Alfred 254-624-4685 dralfred@earthlink.net

Rose Watson 940-482-6744 rewatson@embarqmail.com

Beth Weems Pirtle 972-243-7353 bethsigns@att.net

Mary Alice Garza 972-596-3534 garzama@verizon.net

This was not taught this in school. It is a piece of history you might be interested in knowing...

                                        

A TRUE STORY EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW!

This is the story of our Mothers and Grandmothers who lived only 90 years ago.

 

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

(Lucy Burns)

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

(Dora Lewis)

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

(Alice Paul)

When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

 

Mrs Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a 60 day sentence.

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

Miss Edith Ainge, of Jamestown , New York

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

 

(Berthe Arnold, CSU graduate)

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'

 

HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco/Bingo night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

Conferring over ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution at National Woman's Party headquarters, Jackson Place , Washington , D.C.

Left to right: Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, Anita Pollitzer, Alice Paul, Florence Boeckel, Mabel Vernon (standing, right))

 

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.

 

The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'

 

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.

 

 

Helena Hill Weed, Norwalk , Conn. Serving 3 day sentence in D.C. prison for carrying banner, 'Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.'

So, refresh MY memory. Some women won't vote this year because - Why, exactly?

We have carpool duties?

We have to get to work?

Our vote doesn't matter?

It's raining?

I'm so busy...I've got so much on my plate!

Read again what these women went through for you! We can’t let all their suffering be for nothing.

Make this a subject in your study group, or bring it to your circle meeting. Print out this wonderful resource.