Alp Basaran: PASCRELL BRINGS TROJAN HORSE TO PATERSON

Paterson is one of the most corrupt cities in America. While the good times roll for politicians, entire communities have been destroyed by corruption. Incomes are dropping, apartheid schools are increasing, and infrastructure is crumbling for the ordinary residents of Paterson. The model of championing certain parts of a beleaguered rust belt city and abandoning the rest is simply racial segregation by another name. Not surprisingly, Paterson is one of the most violent cities in the country. During a federal investigation, Paterson police officers admitted to dealing drugs, robbing and beating citizens, and illegally stopping and searching drivers. Congressman Bill Pascrell has been the dominant political figure in this city for 30 years, first as a mayor and then as a Congressman.

Congressman Pascrell writes our tax laws on the Ways and Means Committee, but he has two sons who are professional lobbyists. Generally speaking, lobbyists are the glue between money and power. Lobbyists buy our politicians by funneling billions from wealthy families and corporations into the reelection campaigns of politicians. In return, our politicians write laws in favor of wealthy families and corporations instead of hard working Americans. Lobbyists facilitate a system of legalized bribery, plain and simple.

One of the lobbyist sons of Congressman Pascrell is the President of a non-profit known as One Paterson. One Paterson was established to support the election efforts of the current Mayor of Paterson, Andre Sayegh, a protégé of Congressman Pascrell. The donors of One Paterson are unknown. A Paterson city council member recently warned, “The Sayegh administration has brought to Paterson a more sophisticated level of corruption.” My concern is that this level of corruption can be easily manipulated by an anti-American foreign power into a national security threat, especially at a time when radical and extremist groups are growing in Paterson through political donations.

Naturally, we have a few questions for the political elite of Paterson. Are certain Paterson community leaders who are loyal to Congressman Pascrell taking direct orders from an anti-American foreign power, and are such community leaders surrounding Mayor Sayegh to defraud and bleed Paterson? Is the foreign control of certain Paterson community leaders influencing City Hall to the point where a foreign power with an anti-American agenda is making decisions related to the security of Paterson? Finally, are illegal funds from abroad being funneled into Paterson to be donated to politicians and laundered through real estate projects to curry political favor on behalf of radical and extremist groups?

We have to make sure the largest city in our Congressional district is economically viable enough to fend off the influence of foreign money at a time when our national security infrastructure is crumbling because of President Trump. Unfortunately, the prevalence of drugs, rampant police corruption, the lack of an adequate tax base for public projects, and crumbling public schools are making Paterson extremely vulnerable to the influence of foreign money and radical and extremist groups. What exactly has to happen for the rest of the 9th Congressional District of New Jersey to care about corruption in the city of Paterson?

Fish rots from the head down. Pascrell has to go to change this broken system.

Respectfully,

Alp Basaran

Democratic Candidate for Congress

Georgia Governor Kemp Loses Vote Purge Suit Brought by Reporter Greg Palast

A Major Win in the Battle Against Voter Suppression

[Atlanta-Feb 11, 2020]

In an extraordinary and unexpected move, Federal Judge Eleanor Ross has declared Gov. Brian Kemp the loser in a lawsuit brought by investigative journalist Greg Palast for the State of Georgia to open up its complete files on the mass purge of over half a million voters from the rolls.

Surprising all parties, the judge ruled that Kemp’s defense was so weak that no trial is needed. The judge acted \”sua sponte\”—on her own initiative, unrequested by Palast’s attorneys.

Greg Palast & Helen Butler, co-plaintiffs in Kemp lawsuit

Palast has been fighting Kemp to release his hidden purge lists and methods for six years, for

Rolling Stone

al Jazeera

Salon

Democracy Now

and currently,

The Guardian

Palast said, \”Kemp and the new Sec. of State of Georgia want to keep the lid on their methods for removing literally hundreds of thousands of low-income, young and minority voters on the basis of false information. They cannot hide any more. This is a huge win and precedent for reporters trying to pry information from the hands of guilty officials.\”

A key issue at stake are the \”Interstate Crosscheck\” purge lists secretly provided to Georgia by the Kansas Secretary of State in 2015 and 2017. Kemp had turned over Georgia’s voter rolls to Kansas official Kris Kobach, who worked closely with Donald Trump, and is known for his racially biased vote suppression techniques.

\”Kemp tried to hide the Crosscheck lists which he got from his crony Kobach. The lists are at least 99.9% wrong. Kemp’s office claimed he did not use the lists to purge voters, an assertion contradicted by his GOP predecessor. Moreover, Zach D. Reports of the Palast investigative team obtained the Georgia 2013 purge list provided by Kobach through (legal) investigative techniques—so we know, and the judge knows, he has more squirreled away.

\”Kemp finally turned over evidence that he purged 106,000 voters, overwhelmingly voters of color, that were on the Crosscheck list. But that’s just the tip of the purge-berg.\”

Palast’s co-plaintiff Helen Butler is the Executive Director of the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples Agenda, a non-partisan group founded by civil rights legend Rev. Joseph Lowery. Lowery, commenting on the Crosscheck purge system, told Palast, \”It’s Jim Crow all over again.\”

Oddly, one of Kemp’s defenses was that he turned over Georgia’s confidential voter information to Kobach so it could be used to purge voters in 29 other states, but not Georgia. Kobach’s list showed thousands of Michigan voters supposedly also registered or voted in Georgia. Michigan removed tens of thousands of voters with names like \”James Brown\” and \”Mohammed Mohammed\”—almost all with mis-matched middle names.

The Michigan purge of Georgia voters was key to Trump’s official victory margin of 10,700 in Michigan, putting Trump over the top in the electoral college.

While Palast says, \”The evidence is overwhelming that Kemp used the Crosscheck list in some way to purge Georgians — 106,000 is not a ‘coincidence’— I do want to find out why Kemp was using Georgia voter rolls to remove voters in

other states

.\”

The Crosscheck list identifies over half a million Georgians — including one in seven African-Americans in the state — as having moved out of Georgia, according to an investigative report on Kemp and Kobach published by Palast in

Rolling Stone

in 2016.

\”My job as an investigative journalist is not to change laws or affect elections, but to expose official shenanigans. I thank my lawyers Brian Spears of Atlanta and Jeanne Mirer of New York for taking this case pro bono to rip the cover off Kemp\’s and the state of Georgia’s racially poisonous undermining of democracy.\”

The Palast team is providing investigative reports to

The Guardian’s

\”Fight for the Vote\” series.

* * * * *

The Palast team is completing work on our short film of how exactly Brian Kemp illegally eliminated 340,134 voters from the rolls, stealing the election from Stacey Abrams. The Palast film then takes us to Wisconsin where the \”Kemp\” techniques are the center of a push block 247,000 voters, mostly Democrats and thereby keep Wisconsin, the swing state of swing states, in the Trump column.

source press release

DOJ Sues State of NJ, Gov. Wolf, and AG Grewal for Prohibiting State Officials from Sharing Information with ICE

WASHINGTON, DC–(February 11, 2020)–Today, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against the State of New Jersey, New Jersey Governor Philip Murphy, and New Jersey

Gloucestercitynews.net files

Attorney General Gurbir Grewal. The lawsuit challenges New Jersey Attorney General Law Enforcement Directive 2018-6, which prohibits state officials from sharing information with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) related to the immigration status and release dates of individuals in their custody.

The directive also requires New Jersey law enforcement to “promptly notify a detained individual, in writing and in a language the individual can understand” if ICE files an immigration detainer request for the individual. According to the complaint filed today, on multiple occasions last year, New Jersey officials failed to provide information regarding the release dates of aliens who had been charged with or convicted of crimes. New Jersey’s decision to obstruct federal immigration enforcement by refusing to provide such information is unlawful under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

A copy of the complaint is available

here

Camden County GOP Awards Mehta The Organization Line

Ambrosino: “Mehta in the column helps our down ballot candidates in November.”

HADDON HEIGHTS – Camden County Republican Chairman Rich Ambrosino announced today that after interviewing U.S. Senate candidates over two evenings the organization’s screening committee recommended the organization line be awarded to Rik Mehta. Ambrosino accepted that recommendation and has awarded the organization line to Mehta.

“CCGOP’s by-laws state the chairman has the authority to award the organization line to candidates, but I prefer to be more inclusive and have a screening committee interview candidates and make a recommendation. It’s a system that works well for us.” Rich Ambrosino said, “The screening committee chairman reported to me the recommendation was unanimous, Rik Mehta should be in the column with our candidates.”

“I thank the candidates for taking part in the process.” Ambrosino continued, “All live a considerable distance from our county, their willingness to make the drive shows they understand that with only eight counties having more registered Republicans than Camden County, our 55,000 plus Republicans are very important in a statewide primary.”

“I thank the screening committee for their work and for choosing an excellent U.S. Senate candidate.” Ambrosino said, “Rik Mehta is qualified, has a keen grasp of the issues voters care about, is raising money and has assembled a quality campaign team. Mehta in the column helps our down ballot candidates in November.”

Democratic Candidate Harrison Supports Legalization of Marijuana

[February 5, 2020 – Longport, New Jersey] – Last week, Brigid Callahan Harrison, Democratic candidate for Congress in New Jersey\’s second congressional district, met with leaders at the

National Cannabis Industry Association

. The following is a summary statement Brigid provided regarding her stance on the legalization of cannabis and criminal justice reform:

I support the legalization of regulated buying and selling of marijuana.

The federal government should decriminalize marijuana by removing cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act, because families should not be torn apart due to a loved one being incarcerated on a minor marijuana charge.

It is imperative that the federal government take the lead on this issue. Currently, because of varying state laws, over 31,000 New Jerseyans and 660,000 Americans are arrested each year for doing something that many states have legalized. Federal, state, and municipal governments invest $3.6 billion enforcing marijuana laws, costing governments about $4390 per arrest, while ten states have legalized marijuana. This perpetuates an unequal system in which the poor are often subject to different rules than those who can travel to use marijuana recreationally, and one in which taxpayers are forced to bear the enormous fiscal burden of enforcement.

For me, the most important component of legalization centers on issues of social justice and legal fairness: I support policy that directs the federal courts to expunge prior convictions, allows prior offenders to request expungement with the help of an

expungement attorney

, and requires courts to conduct re-sentencing hearings for those still under supervision. Today prior convictions create a form of economic discrimination that prevent those convicted of low-level marijuana possession charges from attaining employment and may be used against those convicted in civil matters, including in custody

determinations and adoption decisions.

I want to ensure all people are given the same rights and are not discriminated against, so in Washington I will support legislation to prohibit the denial of any federal public benefit because of the possession of marijuana or prior conviction of a marijuana offense.

Another important consideration of legalization centers on social justice and economic fairness. As Congresswoman from the second congressional district, I would support the levying of a 5 percent sales tax on marijuana and marijuana products to create a dedicated revenue stream to assist those negatively impacted by the policy of criminalized marijuana, including job training and re-entry and other services needed by those returning to their communities.

Communities, too, need to be made whole, and small business development grants should be funded to ensure that communities that have paid the price for criminalized marijuana are given the opportunity to thrive and prosper through legalization.

Finally, an important component of legalization involves the creation of a regulatory structure that serves to address the public policy concerns of each cannabis product that would be available to consumers. In Congress, I would support the creation of such a structure housed in existing government agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration and the Tobacco Tax Bureau, which are specifically and uniquely qualified address the important public policy questions associated with the legalization various cannabis products.

Arrests for low level marijuana possession have disproportionately decimated the lives of people of color. High levels of incarceration have torn apart families, wreaked havoc on communities, and burdened municipal governments that often are not only charged with enforcing existing drug laws, but then also providing the support for those left behind when a loved one is sent to jail for a low level drug conviction. The implementation of a legalization policy must lead attempt to remedy the injustices that have been perpetrated in the past.

South Jersey Building and Construction Trades Council endorsed Brigid Callahan Harrison for Congress

February 6, 2020

Egg Harbor City, New Jersey – At its meeting on February 5, 2020, the

South Jersey Building and Construction Trades Council endorsed Brigid Callahan Harrison for Congress in New Jersey\’s Second Congressional District. The SJBTC coordinates activity and provides resources to 15 affiliated trades unions in the construction industry. Scott Sheridan, President of the SJBTC stated:

\”The 2020 race of New Jersey\’s 2nd Congressional District is very important to our association and the election of Brigid Harrison will ensure that our members will be well represented in Congress. Brigid has a clear understanding of the pressing issues faced by organized labor and specifically the Building Trades throughout the country and our state. As a sister in organized labor, Brigid will work passionately to promote the values of the working men and women in our communities.”

\”Brigid is a lifelong member of our community and a longtime union member and we are confident that as Congresswoman Brigid will work to protect the right to collectively bargain, support Davis Bacon legislation, enforce laws to make job sites safer, deliver support for apprenticeship and journey-level training and fight for improved wages, hours and working conditions. We are proud to endorse our union sister, Brigid Callahan Harrison for Congress to represent New Jersey\’s second congressional District.\”

Stealing California from Bernie — again?

by Greg Palast

My dear Californians, I know you filled out that registration form at the DMV. Well, you know what? I’ll bet you that your name is not going to be there because there’s a 45% chance in California when you sign up to register to vote on a piece of paper, your name is never entered on the voter rolls. Guess what? California has one of the worst voting systems in the entire nation.

I checked out my own registration. I took my own advice. I went to the office of the Secretary of State. I typed in “Greg Palast” and it said “no such voter”. So I reregistered online. There’s a simple cure for all this stuff — but you have to know you’ve been purged or never had your name properly entered. Go check and then reregister online. People are afraid to do things online, but in California you get an instant receipt that says you’re now a voter, here’s your voter card on the screen. Take that screenshot. I’m telling everyone to do this because California is just awful.

And we have a March 3rd primary. The California presidential primary’s now been moved up. I saw

what happened to Bernie Sanders

in 2016. People were improperly registered, not registered. There were three quarters of a million, and I want to repeat that,

three quarters of a million ballots

which were cast provisionally or on the wrong ballot, which were thrown out. Alex Padilla, the Secretary of State of California, a little Katherine Harris, he threw out three quarters of a million ballots. They were mostly Bernie voters. We know that from the Roper Poll of the demographic. Bernie Sanders won California in June, 2016, if you counted all the votes…

If you want to vote in the Democratic primary, go online to the Secretary of State’s office. Make sure you’re registered — and make sure you are registered as a Democrat. I’m not saying you should

a Democrat. I’m just saying if you want to vote in the Democratic primary, forget the urban myth that you can vote in the Democratic primary if you’re not registered as a Democrat. Yes, there’s a way to do it. But it’s so difficult and in some cases it’s impossible because the nice lady behind the desk doesn’t know the procedure and could mess it up.

For those who want to know the procedure, it’s really awful. In California, almost everyone gets a mail in ballot. That is, they send you a ballot. Now, if you’re registered, some people call it Independent, but if you’re registered as No Party Preference, which is what they call it in California, if you’re No Party Preference, you’ll get a ballot but it won’t have the presidential candidates. There were literally a million people who were like, where’s Bernie Sanders on the ballot? The answer is, if you’re not registered as a Democrat, you don’t get one of those ballots.

So what do you do? You can mail your No Party Preference ballot, which only has a couple of races cause they can’t give you the partisan races with the NPP ballot, you have to mail it back to the state in time. You have to sign it in the corner where it says, I want this ballot replaced by — and you’ve got to get these words exactly: “Democratic party crossover ballot”. It has to say “crossover” because literally hundreds of thousands of Californians — hundreds of thousands — went in with their No Party Preference ballots, walked into the voting station, said, give me a Democratic party ballot.

Now different things happen, but in many counties, including Los Angeles, a lot of these people behind the desk said, oh yeah, here’s the Democratic party ballot. Well, guess what? That gets disqualified because you are not a Democrat. You have to have a “crossover ballot”. In Los Angeles alone, 66,000 people voted in the Democratic primary in 2016 who are No Party Preference voters, Independents, they got Democratic party ballots and every one of those 66,000 ballots — that’s just LA — was about to be disqualified and thrown out. But you have a fairly good county elections supervisor here, county clerk in Los Angeles, who said, you know what? That’s just throwing away legitimate votes.

But LA is the only place in California that didn’t throw away your votes. If you voted in San Francisco and Berkeley, and you’re a No Party Preference voter and you voted with a Democratic ballot, your ballot did not count. You did not count, unless it specifically said “crossover” at the top…

So to make your life easy, if you want to vote in the Democratic primary, sign up as Democrat. You can change it the next day. And in California, since 2012 — and most people don’t realize this — we have same day registration. So if you do show up and your name is not on the voter rolls, please bring ID with you, a driver’s license, whatever photo ID you can find, anything, including something with your address on it like a cell phone bill. Cause if your name is missing, you can reregister on the actual voting day. Now, they made it very difficult to do that, and it’s still not easy, but they made it easier this time. You can say, well, if I’m not there, I want to register today. But why go through that? Register right now or check your registration right now.

GREG PALAST

is America’s wittiest (and wickedest) muckraker. An award-winning

Guardian

investigative journalist, he is causing crooked election officials all over the country to shiver in their shoes as they wait for a knock on their door from the FBI – thanks to his explosive book and feature film (

“The Best Democracy Money Can Buy”

), which identifies these campaign cockroaches by name and exposes their illicit tampering with the 2016 election.

Letters to the Editor: The State of Our Union Can Start with School Lunch

Tomorrow President Trump will deliver his State of the Union address in front of Congress, outlining his policy priorities and executive vision for the country.

Over the past three years, President Trump has spoken to a domestic agenda focusing on health care, education, farmers and the working class. It’s worth recognizing, however, that his Administration’s proposals have failed to meet, and many times even undermined the health, education, and well-being of our nation’s families and children.

FoodCorps

, we believe that a healthy, prosperous future relies on a strong education system — and that the students that education system serves must be fueled with healthy food. In the last year alone, the President

has sought to dismantle SNAP

(formerly known as food stamps) impacting millions of families’ food budgets, while also jeopardizing school meal access for an estimated one million children, limit healthier options on our kids’ trays, and dissuade immigrant communities from seeking support to feed their families.

As the President prepares to address the nation, amid perhaps the most polarizing moment of his executive tenure, we strongly urge a dialogue — from him and others — that considers our top domestic policy issues as reflections of how we invest in schoolchildren.

For instance:

Role of Food in Children’s Health

: in a political climate that is fueled by debates about health care costs and preventable diet-related diseases, we should channel the old wisdom that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and increase investment in school meals, which ~30 million kids eat every day.

Fighting for Family Farmers

: with continued conversations on how to lift up farmers and rural communities, a clear answer is to connect them with local schools for market development. The

Farm to School Act of 2019

would not only create new revenue streams for local producers, but would help bring more farm-fresh foods into our schools—prioritizing high-need student populations.

Education = Equity

: Children who lack a quality diet are more likely to face a lifetime of challenges: they score lower on tests, miss more days of school, advance less in their careers, and raise children who are likely to repeat the same cycle. Will President Trump lay out a plan to level the playing field so that all kids—regardless of race, place, or class—are well-nourished and ready to thrive at school and beyond?

A Hidden Infrastructure Need

Infrastructure is back in the news.

It’s not just bridges and highways that are falling apart: many school cafeterias haven’t been updated in decades, limiting their capacity to serve meals made from scratch with fresh produce. The

School Food Modernization Act

would provide critical investment in school kitchen equipment to ensure they can effectively and efficiently serve healthy school lunches [link to op-ed].

We believe that a strong State of the Union would include healthy school meals for all children and call on both the White House and Congress to protect and strengthen investments in school meals.

Interested in hearing more on school food policies? We can connect you with FoodCorps Policy Director Kumar Chandran who can speak to current introduced legislation, including the Bills mentioned above, and other policies that would equip school nutrition staff with the best possible tools to serve students on a daily basis.

All the best,

Casey

###

About FoodCorps

Together with communities, FoodCorps connects kids to healthy food in school so that every child—regardless of race, place, or class—gets the nourishment they need to thrive. Our AmeriCorps leaders transform schools into places where all students learn what healthy food is, fall in love with it, and eat it every day. Building on this foundation of direct impact, FoodCorps develops leaders, forges networks, and pursues policy reforms that in time have the potential to improve all of our nation’s 100,000 schools. To learn more about FoodCorps’ work across the country, visit

Homepage

Ayanna Pressley to Deliver Working Families Party Response to the State of the Union

Washington, D.C. (February 3, 2020)– Today, the Working Families Party announced Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D – Mass.) will deliver WFP’s response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union

Gloucestercitynews.net graphic

Address on Tuesday evening. In 2018, Pressley became the first woman of color elected to

ongress from Massachusetts. During her first year in Congress, Pressley led on a number of progressive priorities, including introducing a House resolution called the “People’s Justice Guarantee,” which called for the abolishment of cash bail and the death penalty, among other transformational reforms to the criminal legal system.

The speech can be viewed on the WFP’s Facebook page.

“Ayanna Pressley has fearlessly held this administration accountable from the moment she touched down in Washington, all while fighting to reimagine our country so it works for the many instead of the privileged and well-connected few,” said Working Families Party National Director Maurice Mitchell. “On Tuesday night, she’ll put forth a vision for a post-Trump America that allows our nation to live up to its promise of freedom and equality under the law for every person.”

In 2018, the Working Families Party endorsed Pressley’s historic run for the Massachusetts’ 7th Congressional District. Both Pressley and the Working Families Party have both endorsed Senator Elizabeth Warren for the Democratic presidential nomination, citing her agenda of bold, structural change.

“I’m honored to accept the invitation from the Working Families Party to deliver their State of the Union response,” said Pressley. “We find ourselves in unprecedented times. Every day, the occupant of the White House is advancing cruel, bigoted policies that are creating pain and trauma in our communities. Our response on Tuesday will lift up the strength of our diverse grassroots movement that will help evict the occupant of the White House, elect dynamic leaders up and down the ballot this fall, and will advance a bold, progressive policy agenda that returns power to the people and ensures equity and justice for all of our communities.”

Pressley’s remarks will follow the Democratic Party responses from Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Texas Rep. Veronica Escobar. This will be the Working Families Party’s third response to the State of the Union Address. Former Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) delivered the response in 2018, and Wisconsin Lt. Gov. and WFP national committee member Mandela Barnes in 2019.

Pressley was born in Cincinnati but grew up in Chicago. She got her start in politics working for former United States Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II. She also served as a senior aide to former Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. In 2009, Pressley was elected to Boston City Council, making her the first woman of color to serve on that body in its 100-year history. While on the council, Pressley worked in close partnership with community on issues of consequence, including the groundbreaking creation of the Committee on Health, Women, Families, and Communities, and the development of a comprehensive, culturally competent, medically accurate, and age-appropriate sexual education and health curriculum, which was successfully adopted as a permanent part of the Boston Public Schools’ wellness policy.

The WFP is a grassroots political party fighting for an America for the many, not the few. Last year the WFP drove a progressive wave in local elections across America. The WFP helped elect longtime tenants organizer and progressive champion Jumaane Williams as Public Advocate in

New York City

, swelled the ranks of

Chicago

city council progressive caucus, put public education champions on the school board in

Milwaukee

, helped insurgent activist Candi CdeBaca oust a longtime incumbent on the

Denver City Council

, and elected other council members from

Morgantown

, W.Va., to Phoenix. In 2018 it helped to drive the progressive wave up and down the ballot, flipping state senate chambers in

New York

and Colorado, and defeating Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.).

Pennsylvania\’s House Republicans Unveiled Bills to Help Human Trafficking Victims

Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Bryan Cutler speaks during a news conference Jan. 22, 2020, in Harrisburg. Image courtesy of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives

By Steve Bittenbender |

The Center Square

HARRISBURG, PA–Pennsylvania’s House Republicans on Wednesday unveiled a series of bills they say will help victims of human trafficking in the state.

With more than 1,200 reported cases of trafficking in the state over the last 13 years, state Rep. Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, told a crowd gathered at the Ryan Rotunda in the Capitol Complex that it’s a crisis issue for the state.

According to Insider Monkey, Pennsylvania ranked 10th nationally with 127 cases reported in 2017. The site also noted that Pittsburgh ranked 10th as well among all U.S. cities. In most cases, victims of human trafficking endure sexual violence and exploitation.

“This package of legislation addresses many issues,” said Cutler, the House majority leader. “We must see the urgent need to step up efforts to combat trafficking as part of the wider battle for human rights. We need to create a culture where people no longer stay silent about the abuse they are suffering and where the legal systems take such violence seriously.”

In all, the package includes six House bills, a Senate bill and a House resolution, the latter of which would recognize January as National Human Trafficking Awareness Month.

In addition to aiding victims of trafficking, some of the bills also stiffen penalties for those convicted of trafficking. For example, state Rep. Barry Jozwiak, R-Berks, sponsors House Bill 161, which would make the trafficking of infants a first-degree felony. State Sen. Kristen Phillips-Hill sponsors Senate Bill 60, which would increase penalties for those convicted of trafficking and patronizing a victim of sexual servitude. Those offenses, too, would become first-degree felonies.

Another bill, House Bill 2175 sponsored by state Rep. Meghan Schroeder, R-Bucks, would expand the list of offenses where prosecutors could call an expert witness to inform juries about sexual violence and how trafficking victims may respond to violent acts. Meanwhile, House Bill 2174 sponsored by state Rep. Natalie Mihalek, R-Allegheny, would keep defendants from using a trafficking victim’s past as evidence in their defense from prosecution.

Mary Quinn, the president and CEO of the YWCA of Greater Harrisburg, said her agency has helped nearly 300 trafficking victims over the last five-plus years. Through that work, she said, she’s realized those victims suffered from complex trauma and need special resources. By pushing these bills through the Legislature, she hopes it can help bring more resources to the victims.

In some cases, the victims themselves find themselves being prosecuted. York County District Attorney Dave Sunday noted a drug death case where his office initially prosecuted a young woman who handed the victim the lethal dose. However, in working with the defense attorney and advocates, they soon realized the defendant in the case was being exploited and kept from her family in New Jersey.

Jennifer Storm, the state’s victims advocate, said cases like the one Sunday discussed show that previous efforts have worked in helping identify victims. However, more work remains to be done.

“We’re here to craft a more trauma-informed justice system,” she said.

published here with permission of The Center Square