PUBLIC POLICY – Countdown to the Election

COUNTDOWN TO THE ELECTION 

CALL TO ACTION

The Election is November 8th, 2022. The National social media toolkit link is provided so you may have content and hashtags to post from now until November 8. Branches and members are also asked to amplify the posts made via the AAUW Florida social media platforms.

Thank you for the work that you have done so far during these difficult times. We have had to be innovative, flexible, and focused in our efforts due to COVID-19. As usual, AAUW women have stepped up to the challenge!

ACCOUNTS & HASHTAGS

  • AAUW Florida: @aauwfl  – Instagram (IG) & @FloridaAauw – Facebook (FB)
  • AAUW National: @AAUWnational – Instagram (IG)  & AAUW – Facebook (FB)
  • #ItsMyVote
  • #Rockthevote
  • #PowerInOurVote
  • #AAUWVotes
  • #FloridaVotes

GRAPHICS:  Graphics and How to Get Out the Vote (GOTV) social media tools can be found at https://www.aauwaction.org/voter-registration/get-out-the-vote-using-social-media/

 HOW TO USE HASTAGS: Go to:   https://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Hashtag

 SAMPLE MESSAGING

  • Your vote is your voice. #PowerInOurVote #AAUWVotes
  • Mask up & vote! Our voices must be heard more than ever before. #It’sMyVote
  • Make your plan to vote whether in person or by mail! #AAUWVotes

Make a Plan to Vote Week (10/4-10/11)

  • If you have not done so already, now is the time to make your plan to vote in this election!
  • When is my mail-in ballot due? Absentee Ballot or Early Voting? Where is my polling location or voting center? Do I have the correct id? To help you make your vote plan for November’s election, go to https://www.rockthevote.org/how-to-vote/florida #MakeAPlan

  #WhyIVolunteer (Election Protection)

  • Poll workers and so many other volunteers are essential to a smooth and easy voting experience. We want to know why you volunteer! Share a video or photo telling the world why you volunteer using the hashtag #WhyIVolunteer and tag on IG @aauwfl or FB @FloridaAauw
  • There is still a shortage of poll workers, go to https://www.powerthepolls.org/ or contact your county’s Supervisor of Elections to see if poll workers are still needed.

 Ready to Vote?

  • Consider making a plan to vote and preparing a survival kit if you are voting in person on November 8. Supplies in your kit should include masks, snacks, and hand sanitizer.
  • Share a video or photo telling us what is in your kit & tag IG @aauwfl or FB @FloridaAauw

  #WhyIVote

  • Voting is one of the most important ways to share your voice in our democracy! We want to know why you vote!
  • Share a video or photo telling the world why you vote using the hashtag #WhyIVote and tag IG @aauwfl or FB @FloridaAauw

10 Days before – National Vote Early Day

  • Three Reasons to Vote Early
    1.  You don’t have to wait until November 3 to have your voice heard!
    2. It’s at your convenience
    3. Shorter lines
  • Learn about Florida’s early voting options here: https://www.vote.org/state/florida/

 5 Days (November 3) – Confirm Your Polling Location

 2 Days (November 6) – 866 Our Vote Hotline, Know Your Rights

1 Day (November 7) – #WhyIVote/866 Our Vote Hotline

  • Voting is one of the most important ways to share your voice in our democracy! We want to know why you vote! Share a video or photo telling the world why you vote using the hashtag #WhyIVote and tag on IG @aauwfl or FB @FloridaAauw
  • Encourage everyone to use 866-Our-Vote for election day questions or concerns.

Election Day (November 8) – Vote/866 Our Vote Hotline

  • Today is the day to get out and VOTE! Today is your last chance to have a say on who should lead at the national, state, and local levels.
  • If you need to confirm your polling location or need assistance for any issue you face while voting call, 866-Our-Vote.

YOUR VOICE IS YOUR VOTE BE HEARD!

Join Two Minute Activist

Take action on issues impacting women and girls by joining AAUW’s Action Network. As a Two-Minute Activist, you will receive urgent email notices when your advocacy is needed most. We’ll provide all the tools you need to call or send messages to your members of Congress, write letters to the editor for your local newspapers, contact your state legislators about pressing issues, and more.

Become a Two-Minute Activist

AAUW Florida Lobby Days

We Were There! 

What to Do Now:  Call Your Representative and ask him to co-sponsor HB 323.

Contact AAUW FL Director of Public Policy aauwflksmith@gmail.com, to be put on the email list for updates. No obligation!

 

Know Your Rights: Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault under Title IX

Image by Tony Cairns, Flickr Creative Commons

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education. It covers women and men, girls and boys, and staff and students in any educational institution or program that receives federal funds. Local school districts, colleges and universities, for-profit schools, career and technical education agencies, libraries, and museums are all covered under Title IX.
Read more

Image Link: https://www.aauw.org/files/2014/10/Campus-sexual-assault-protest.jpg

 

AAUW Public Policy Priorities

 

AAUW Public Policy Priorities

AAUW’s Public Policy Priorities, adopted every two years by every-member vote, establish the federal action issues on which AAUW members across the country focus their advocacy

efforts and guide the work of the national staff. States and branches should also use the Public Policy Priorities to inform their advocacy efforts on state and local issues.

The strength of the AAUW Public Policy Priorities is that they originate and end with the membership. In the fall of even-numbered years the AAUW Public Policy Committee (APPC) solicits feedback from members and staff to develop proposed Public Policy Priorities based on viability, critical need, strong member support, and potential for distinctive contribution. Once the draft is developed, it is posted online for a comment period and submission of additional proposed revisions. The APPC then finalizes the proposed Public Policy Priorities, and the AAUW Board of Directors reviews, amends as necessary, and approves them before they go to the membership for a vote in the spring of odd-numbered years

2021–23 AAUW Public Policy Priorities

Adopted May 2021

The Public Policy Priorities underscore AAUW’s mission to advance gender equity for women and girls through research, education, and advocacy. The work of AAUW builds upon responsible public participation, and the following priorities provide a basis for AAUW members’ actions at the local, state, national, and international levels. Implicit in each is support for government agencies administering programs, including adequate

appropriations, effective and accountable administration, and provision for citizen participation. We advocate public discussion to ensure enlightened decisions on these priorities. We work to increase the number of women, and the diversity of backgrounds they represent, including race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual identity, in policy- and other decision-making positions. Our positions are shaped by our commitment to being nonpartisan and fact-based, and to acting with integrity. We strive for our work to be

inclusive and intersectional, collaborating with diverse allies and coalitions to achieve equity for all.

Basic to all AAUW’s public policy efforts is the understanding that true equity requires a balance between the rights of the individual and the needs of the community. AAUW opposes all forms of discrimination and supports constitutional protection for the civil rights of all individuals.

AAUW believes that high-quality public education is the foundation of a democratic society and the key to improving economic prosperity and gender equality. We advocate equitable access to education and climates free of harassment, bullying, and sexual assault. We support academic freedom, civic education, protection from censorship, bias- free education, and responsible funding for all levels of education, including early

childhood education and programs for students with disabilities. We advocate for increased and more equitable access to higher education, that is affordable and yields high quality credentials or degrees. We promote intentional, equity-focused efforts to close the persistent learning and opportunity gaps that disproportionately affect students from low-income and minority groups.

AAUW promotes the economic, social, and physical well-being of all persons. Essential to that well-being are an economy that provides equitable employment opportunities; reduction of poverty; a living wage; quality, affordable dependent care; paid family and medical leave; safe, livable, and affordable housing; quality, affordable, and accessible health care for all, including reproductive health care; and a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. We support a Social Security system that provides inflation- protected, guaranteed lifetime benefits with a progressive benefit formula, spousal and widow benefits, and disability and survivor benefits. We support robust and strong Medicare and Medicaid systems and oppose any efforts to undermine them, including privatization and block grant proposals. AAUW recognizes that gun violence is a public health and safety crisis.

AAUW believes in the right to privacy and freedom from violence. We firmly believe in the separation of church and state. We support a fair, balanced, and independent judiciary. We support public budgets that balance individual rights and responsibility to the community. We see an urgent need for meaningful campaign finance reform, open and fair elections that are broadly accessible to all voters, and nonpartisan voter education efforts that will promote equitable political participation and representation in appointed and elected office.

AAUW believes in the need to end white supremacy and address structural and systemic racism. Efforts to improve racial, ethnic, and gender justice must be embedded into every initiative. This includes working to eradicate intersectional bias and creating a culture of involvement, respect, inclusion, and connection, where the richness of diverse ideas, backgrounds, and perspectives is fully appreciated, understood and utilized.

AAUW believes that global interdependence requires national and international policies against human trafficking and that promote peace, justice, human rights, sustainable development, and mutual security for all people. We support the civil and human rights of all immigrants, including a fair and just path to legal status. We support a strengthened United Nations and its affiliated agencies. We advocate implementation of the Beijing

Declaration and Platform for Action from the 4th World Conference on Women and subsequent declarations. We affirm our active participation in the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women and our commitment to ratification of the U.N. Convention on the

Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). We support international family planning programs that are consistent with AAUW policy.

Biennial Action Priorities

National priorities inform state and local action. Biennial priorities for national action are chosen according to the criteria of viability, critical need, strong member support, and potential for distinctive AAUW contribution or leadership. Additional policy priorities are also critical to ensure equity for all. No further order of importance for the additional priorities is implied.

To support a strong system of public education that promotes gender fairness, equity, diversity and inclusivity, and to address the barriers and implicit biases that hinder the advancement of women and girls, AAUW advocates

  • Strengthening and vigorous enforcement of Title IX and all other civil rights laws pertaining to education
  • Adequate and equitable funding for and access to quality public education, including early childhood education, for all students
  • Opposition to the use of public funds for nonpublic elementary and secondary education and to charter schools that do not adhere to the same civil rights and accountability standards as required of other public schools
  • Increased support for and protection of programs that meet the needs of girls and women in elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education, including strong promotion of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and comprehensive sexual health education
  • Increased support for and access to affordable higher education for women, including alleviating the debt burden that disproportionately impacts borrowers of color and exacerbates the racial wealth gap

• Support for practices that halt the flow of students from schools to prisons, including reforming school disciplinary practices that disproportionately punish girls and students of color

To achieve economic security for all women, AAUW advocates

  • Pay equity and fairness in compensation and benefits
  • Equitable access and advancement in employment, free from systemic barriers andbiases, including vigorous enforcement of employment discrimination statutes
  • Closing the gender and race gaps in leadership opportunities for women of allbackgrounds
  • Greater availability of and access to a high standard of benefits and policies that

promote work-life balance, including quality and affordable dependent care and

paid family, medical, and sick leave

  • Programs that provide women with education, training, and support for success inthe workforce, including nontraditional occupations and women’s entrepreneurship
  • Strengthening programs, including welfare and career and technical education, toimprove postsecondary education access, career development, and earningpotential
    • Strengthening retirement benefits and programs, including pension improvementsand protecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid from privatization
  • Access for all women to the full range of health care services to ensure economic security
  • Increasing the number of quality jobs that pay a living wage

To guarantee equality, individual rights, and social justice for a diverse and inclusive society, AAUW advocates

  • Vigorous enforcement of and full access to civil and constitutional rights, including affirmative action and expanding voting rights

Complete, accurate and timely collection of data, disaggregated by race, ethnicity, and gender identity to inform policy decisions and the apportionment of

political representation

  • Universal access to quality, affordable health care, including insurance, andcomprehensive family planning services, including expansion of patients’ rights
  • Freedom from violence and fear of violence, including hate crimes, in homes,schools, workplaces, and communities
  • Support for U.N. programs that address human rights and women’s and girls’concerns
  • Freedom in the definition of self and family, including protection from discriminationand a guarantee of civil rights for all family structures
  • Passage and ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment

Self-determination of one’s reproductive health decisions

Additional Policy Resources:

•AAUW Action Network and Two-Minute Activist Tool: The cornerstone of AAUW’s e- advocacy efforts, Action Network sends subscribers urgent email notices when their advocacy is needed most.

• Two-Minute Activist (aauw.us/twominuteactivist) online tool allows you to quickly contact your legislators and make your voice heard. Anyone with an email address can subscribe.

• AAUW Washington Update: This email bulletin offers an insider’s view on the public policy process, the latest policy news, and updates from the Public Policy and Government Relations Department. Join the list (aauw.us/washingtonupdate) today.

• Quick Facts: AAUW compiles current information and advocacy resources on issues related to our Public Policy Priorities in order to provide resources that offer rigorous analysis and most effective avenues for action. For updated position papers and quick facts on AAUW’s priority issues, visit the AAUW Issues webpage (aauw.us/aauwissues).

AAUW 1310 L St. NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20005 202.785.7793 |www.aauw.org advocacy@aauw.org

Download the 2021-2023 Public Policy Priorities PDF

Additional Policy Resources

AAUW Action Network and Two-Minute Activist Tool: The cornerstone of AAUW’s e-advocacy efforts, Action Networksends subscribers urgent email notices when their advocacy is needed most. With our Two-Minute Activist online tool, it takes no time to contact your legislators and make your voice heard. Anyone with an email address can subscribe.

AAUW Washington Update: This weekly email bulletin offers an insider’s view on the public policy process, the latest policy news, and updates from the Public Policy and Government Relations Department. Join the list today.

Quick Facts: AAUW compiles current information and advocacy resources on issues related to our Public Policy Priorities in order to provide resources that offer rigorous analysis and most effective avenues for action. For updated position papers and quick facts on AAUW’s priority issues, visit the AAUW Issues webpage.

AAUW
1310 L St. NW, Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20005
202.785.7793
www.aauw.org
advocacy@aauw.org