|Progressive Action: support for legislation in the promotion of freedom, knowledge and security. Freedom is achieved when constitutional protections are respected and when people are treated with equality under law. Knowledge is pursued through rigorous support for science and education. Security comes from the protection of environmental resources, the strengthening of economic opportunity for people and the preservation of peace from erosion by wasteful, destructive militarism.
Rep. Mark Critz's Progressive Action Score: 3
A score of 3 means that Representative Critz has positively acted to support 3% of a slate of progressive policies in the 111th Congress.
The following are positive progressive actions taken by Congressman Critz during the 111th Congress:
No child in America deserves to go hungry, but in places and times of poor economic opportunity, some children in America go without food. When this happens, we starve our future. S. 3307, The Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010, was passed and signed into law in order to do better by America's kids. The bill makes the first inflation-adjusted increase in federal funding to feed poor kids in 30 years. Those who voted against food for poor kids overwhelmingly voted a week later to give billionaires a tax break.
Rep. Critz has acted progressively by voting YES to pass this measure.
Unfinished BusinessThere are some bills on the progressive agenda to which Representative Critz has not yet added his support.
Call Your Member of Congress to urge that he cosponsor these pending bills:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. Nor shall any State deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. These are the American standards of nondiscrimination, chiseled into our legal bedrock in the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. How seriously do members of Congress take this section of the U.S. Constitution? H.R. 1024 is a test.
H.R. 1024, the Uniting American Families Act, is a bill which aims to put into closer compliance with the U.S. Constitution by removing discrimination according to the status of permanent couples. According to law, same-sex couples in permanent relationships cannot marry; only different-sex couples can. The creates two classes of couple in the United States. They are separate. Are they equal? Not currently. Under current immigration law, married immigrant spouses of citizens and permanent residents have a preferred route toward gaining permanent resident status themselves. Unmarried partners of citizens and permanent residents have this avenue closed to them. That is unequal treatment under law for immigrants under American jurisdiction, and it is an unequal abridgment of legal privilege for the citizens whose permanent partners wish to join them.
Introduced by New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler, the Uniting American Families Act would end this status discrimination by amending various the immigration laws that discriminate against same-sex couples when one member of a couple is a citizen or permanent resident and the other is seeking citizenship or residency status.
Read H.R. 1024, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
H.R. 104 would create a commission to investigate a bipartisan commission 'on presidential war powers and civil liberties'. The commission would investigate the extraordinary powers claimed for the Presidency under George W. Bush, including arbitrary and indefinite imprisonment, extraordinary rendition of detainees to foreign countries to be tortured, cruel and coercive interrogation techniques by American authorities and the 'ghosting' of detainees so that the American public doesn't know they have been detained. The commission would have the power to hold hearings and compel testimony by subpoena, and would issue reports to the President and to Congress. Knowing the past is key to change in the future.
Read H.R. 104, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
H.R. 1310, the Clean Water Protection Act, would end the old practice in mountaintop mining of just taking all the heavy-metal-polluted rubble, calling it "fill material," and dumping it into streams from which toxins leach into water supplies and deadly, muddy floodwaters are regularly unleashed.
In 2002, the Bush administration declared that toxin-laden debris from mountaintop removal could be declared "fill material" and dumped into mountain waterways. H.R. 1310 would declare such activity, already dangerous to human health and natural ecosystems, to be illegal.
Read H.R. 1310, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
In a document called the Monaco Declaration, hundreds of scientists from around the world warn that 'Ocean acidification is accelerating and severe damages are imminent'. Due to ocean acidification, animals like shellfish and corals are having a difficult time creating their shells and skeletons. Other ocean animals are experiencing disruptions in their reproductive behavior and general physiological functions as a result of the increased acidity. H.R.14, the Federal Ocean Acidification Research And Monitoring Act, would establish a regime of governmental research and monitoring of the progress of ocean acidification, with the goal of developing strategies for mitigation of ecological impact.
Read H.R. 14, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
Did you know that if you're crossing into or out of the United States, U.S. agents have declared the right take your electronic gear and data from you without the requirement of probable cause or a warrant? If the government makes its seizure on the border, it has decided it may keep what it takes indefinitely, and there is no regulation over what the government can do with whatever data it finds. There is no requirement for the government to inform the person whose property and private information it has confiscated.
To bring information about these warrantless seizures to the light of day and provide some accountability for what the government does, Rep. Loretta Sanchez has introduced H.R. 1726, the Border Security Search Accountability Act. If passed, Sanchez’ bill would require:
* sensitive, proprietary and/or personal information to be protected under current laws applying outside the border;
* searches to be done with supervision by commanding officers and the individuals whose gear has been seized;
* receipts for seized items, a procedure for complaints, and disclosure of any sharing of seized information by the government (with a national security exception)
* time limits on how long the U.S. government could keep objects and information without a warrant of probable cause;
* reports to Congress regarding the frequency, and implications for privacy and civil rights of such searches, as well as indicating how often such searches actually led to prosecution or conviction.
In short, Rep. Sanchez’s bill creates some initial limitations on the government’s border search powers while collecting the information necessary to raise awareness and address the problem in a systematic and informed way. It is a step in the right direction.
Read H.R. 1726, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
The Earth's oceans have entered an ecological crisis as massive as the seas themselves, and it threatens even those of us who live on the land. Oceans 21 is legislation that creates a comprehensive beginning for governmental intervention in this crisis. It establishes a national oceans policy, strengthens the ability of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration to deal with it, and establishes a framework for regional cooperation on issues as they arise.
Read H.R. 21, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
The Farallon Islands are an uninhabited group of islands -- uninhabited by humans, that is. The Gulf of the Farralones is a sanctuary for marine birds, is a gathering point for marine mammals, and is host to a wide variety of ocean life due to the shallow depth of the water immediately surrounding it.
In short, the Farallon Island area is a biological treasure. It has value beyond its stark beauty as a biological bank, maintaining fisheries that sustain commerce as well. H.R. 223 is a bill before the Congress that would expand the boundaries of the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary to more fully protect our national biological (and thereby industrial) health for the long term.
Read H.R. 223, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
Since the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act in the 1990s, successive Congresses have made it clear, either loudly or meekly, that there is no intention to give same-sex couples the right to marry at the federal level. H.R. 2517, also known as the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act of 2009, would grant same-sex domestic partners of federal workers the same benefits as federal workers' different-sex spouses. For proponents of equality under law in America, this is a step forward for same-sex couples, albeit at a less ambitious scale than full-fledged same-sex marriage.
Read H.R. 2517, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
H.R. 2704 is a bill to shut down the National Applications Office (NAO) in the Department of Homeland Security.
The NAO is a program to use military satellites to engage in surveillance of American people in American homes, American businesses and American public places. This military surveillance in domestic territory is in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act that forbids the U.S. military from being used for domestic purposes. The surveillance is done on Americans without the warrants from a judge that the 4th Amendment to the Constitution requires. The NAO is to share all this information with law enforcement officials at the state, federal and local level. Yes, this means that your local sheriff could be using military spy satellites to spy on you.
To the members of Congress who have failed to cosponsor H.R. 2704, domestic deployment of the military to spy on Americans without so much as a warrant doesn't seem to be a big deal. For those members of the House who feel that violations of the Constitution, violations of Americans' privacy and the creeping infiltration of the military into civilians' lives are significant problems, cosponsorship of H.R. 2704 is imperative.
Read H.R. 2704, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
It might seem that the USA is moving beyond discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transexuals. Yet, it's still legal for people to be fired from their jobs for no other reason than that they aren't heterosexual.
H.R. 3017 would make it illegal to engage in discrimination against people on the basis of sexual orientation.
Read H.R. 3017 , then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
If passed, the Respect for Marriage Act of 2009 (H.R. 3567) would repeal DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act. Enacted in the 1990s, DOMA removed the presumption (based in the "Full Faith and Credit" clause of the Constitution) that same-sex marriages carried out in one state would be recognized in other states or by the federal government. H.R. 3567 would restore cross-state and federal recognition, recognition that different-sex marriages continue to enjoy.
Read H.R. 3567, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
The Constitution and Citizenship Day Act of 2009 establishes a small grant program to fund the creation of curricula teaching high school students about the history and content of the United States Constitution, using the event of Constitution Day (September 17) as an anchor.
Read H.R. 3591, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
H.R. 4300 is a bill that responds to incidents of credit card corporations raising interest rates as many as 30 percentage points on credit card users, even when those holding credit cards keep up with their payments and aren't late sending in their checks. If passed into law, the bill would cap annual interest rates for credit cards in America at 16% and limit fees for late balances to $15. These provisions would preserve the ability of credit card corporations to make a profit while protecting Americans from downright usurious financial exploitation.
Read H.R. 4300, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
If passed, the School Building Enhancement Act would work through two already-established programs of energy efficiency: Energy Star for K-12 through the Environmental Protection Agency and EnergySmart Schools through the Department of Energy. H.R. 579 would provide grants and planning assistance for states to implement cost-saving environmental building designs, to deploy fleets of energy-efficient buses, and to maximize transportation alternatives for students, staff and parents to and from school. The bill is designed to simultaneously save educational institutions money and protect the environment.
Read H.R. 579, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
The Military Commissions Act is one of the worst laws to be passed by Congress during the Bush years. It revoked the ancient protection of the writ of habeas corpus, enabling arbitrary and indefinite imprisonment. The law ended the right to a fair and speedy trial, setting up a system of kangaroo courts that could operate under absurdly unjust standards. The law gave retroactive immunity to the President and his aides for war crimes. It created unconstitutional exceptions to the Geneva Conventions. It made hearsay and evidence obtained under coercive interrogation admissible.
Under President Barack Obama, the Military Commissions Act is still on the books. It is true that the prisons of Guantanamo Bay and other "black sites" run by the U.S. around the world will be closed... but the laws that enabled them remain in effect. As long as the Military Commissions Act remains on the books, any closure of prisons like those at Guantanamo will be purely voluntary... and wholly reversible.
The surest way to overcome this problem is not just to rely on the trustworthiness of the President of the United States, but to enact a law that specifically contradicts and counteracts the Military Commissions Act. U.S. Representative David Price has introduced legislation to do just that. Itís H.R. 591, the Interrogation and Detention Reform Act. It does away with the unconstitutional military tribunal system. It does away with torture interrogations. It repeals the repeal of habeas corpus and returns constitutional legal protections to the American justice system. Those members of Congress who support H.R. 591 show the most fidelity to their oath of office pledge that they defend the liberties inherent in the Constitution of the United States.
Read H.R. 591, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
Claims of common ground are often a sham, covering up the results of a lopsided negotiation in which one side gets the lionís share of the benefits. But H.R. 626, the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act, is one case in which the interests of Republican and Democratic constituencies truly meet. Republicans say that they support family values. Democrats say that they support workersí rights. Both of these are provided for with H.R. 626, which if passed would give federal employees four weeks of paid parental leave. Such benefits increase employee satsifaction and loyalty, cement family bonds and give children a healthy start in that critical first month of life.
Read H.R. 626, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
With so many people struggling to get by, this is no time for the U.S. government to reward factory owners who exploit their workers. H.R. 6262, the Jobs Through Procurement Act, closes a loophole that has allowed contractors to supply the government with sweatshop-made products if a subcontractor does the dirty work. This bill requires a contractor to certify that the products it sells to the government are made in conditions that respect workers rights and pay them a living wage.
Read H.R. 6262, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
H.R. 676 is a bill that would NOT create a system of universal health care in the United States. Rather, it would expand an already functional system, Medicare, to cover every American. Nobody would have to invent an entirely new system, and so startup costs would be low. The moral benefit of health care for everybody would be great, but personal economic benefit would be considerable as well: no more bankruptcies and foreclosures caused by huge health care bills, no more delayed primary care leading to the accumulation of huge and expensive problems, no staying in dead-end jobs just to keep health care, no worries about exclusion due to pre-existing conditions. The best of the private system is retained: you choose your hospitals, you choose your doctors, and you don't need government responsibility to see them.
Read H.R. 676, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
Our oceans are in severe crisis, not just because of pollution, but also because of overfishing and climate change. It's irresponsible to ruin the marine resources of tomorrow in order to fill the gas tanks of today. On February 2, 2009, Representative Ed Markey remarked:
"Last year, as a result of opposition from the Bush Administration, the longstanding protections against drilling off the east and west coasts expired. As a result, the American people could now begin to see drill rigs as close as three miles to our beaches and in fragile ecosystems like Georges Bank. Allowing oil and gas drilling in Georges Bank would forever destroy this fragile ecosystem and our nationís most important fishery."
The Georges Bank Preservation Act, H.R. 790, would prevent oil companies from establishing offshore drilling operations on the Georges Bank, a very biologically productive area off the coast of New England. It would protect the fisheries of the Georges Bank rather than decimate them at a time when they are already threatened.
Read H.R. 790, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
The problem with cluster bombs is threefold:
1. When used, they are distributed in large numbers across terrain;
2. They have a high failure rate, leaving many unexploded bombs;
3. They are small and typically shiny, disproportionately attracting the hands of curious children.
Cluster bombs are designed to kill people, not to damage buildings or roads. Like land mines, they continue to kill people long after the battle in which they were used. It is typical for a large number of these smaller bombs to remain undetonated, waiting to explode, after their initial deployment.
The Federation of American Scientists' report on the matter makes clear the danger of cluster munitions: "40 percent of the duds on the ground are hazardous and for each encounter with an unexploded submunition there is a 13 percent probability of detonation. Thus, even though an unexploded submunition is run over, kicked, stepped on, or otherwise disturbed, and did not detonate, it is not safe. Handling the unexploded submunition may eventually result in arming and subsequent detonation."
Cluster bombs kill civilians when they are used. Our government knows this, and yet our government continues to manufacture, use and sell cluster bombs to foreign countries.
The Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act of 2009 forbids the United States government from spending money to use, sell or transfer cluster bombs unless the following requirements are met:
There is a waiver in the law for the first requirement (for the malfunctioning rate of 1 percent or lower), in cases in which it is "vital" to use cluster bombs in order to protect the security of the United States. However, even in such cases, the President is required to submit a report to Congress which explains how civilians will be protected from the cluster bombs, and revealing the failure rate of the cluster bombs, as well as whether the cluster bombs are equipped with self-destruct functions.
The Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act is not perfect, but it is a big improvement over the deadly status quo.
- The cluster bombs are proven to have a 1 percent or lower rate of malfunction
- The cluster bombs will not be used against anything but a clearly defined military target, in an area where there are no civilians and in places where civilians do not ordinarily live
- A plan is submitted, with the costs included, for cleaning up all the undetonated explosives that come from cluster bombs, whether they are used by the US military, or by other countries to whom the United States has supplied the cluster bombs
Read H.R. 981, then call Rep. Critz at 814-535-2642 and ask him to support it by adding cosponsorship.
|Regressive Action: a pattern of legislative behavior that erodes freedom, knowledge and security. When constitutional protections are disregarded, when discrimination under law is fostered, when the pursuit of knowledge is abandoned and science overruled, when wealth for a few matters more than prosperity for all, and when "Yeehaw" becomes the articulation of foreign policy, our nation is headed in a direction that is not only morally wrong but self-destructive.
Rep. Mark Critz's Regressive Action Score: 11
A score of 11 means that Representative Critz, through voting or cosponsorship, has pushed forward 11% of a slate of regressive policies in the 111th Congress.
The following are regressive policy actions taken by Rep. Critz during the 111th Congress:
Substantively, the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy weakens the strained U.S. military by kicking people out with good service records. There is a more formal problem with DADT as well: the policy to discriminate, to kick people out of the military because of their sexual orientation, is a violation of the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Donít Ask, Donít Tell Repeal Act of 2010 not only lends substantive benefit to the military and to lesbian and gay servicemembers, but also strengthens constitutional government.
Representative Critz voted AGAINST this progressive measure.
The 2010 extension of tax cuts didn't just continue the tax cuts for billionaires and millionaires enacted under George W. Bush. It expanded those tax cuts, allowing inheritance of estates of up to 10 million dollars tax-free and deepening special tax favors for investors. The legislation also undermined the integrity of Social Security by creating a new standard of low funding for the Social Security trust fund, exposing Social Security to new charges of being unsustainably funded.
Representative Critz voted YES to pass this regressive measure.
Pingree Amendment to H.R. 5136
It's hard to think of a better example of military waste: Spending billions of dollars for two separate manufacturing systems in two separate companies to make two versions of an engine, with identical performance, for the same airplane Ė the F-35, an airplane that only requires one engine in the first place. Yet that's just what the House of Representatives voted in favor of on May 27, 2010. Representative Chellie Pingree of Maine introduced an amendment to cut funding for the second redundant F-35 engine, but a majority of contractor-funded legislators voted the Pingree Amendment down. A yes vote is a vote to cut military pork spending. A no vote is a vote to preserve the pork.
Representative Critz voted AGAINST this progressive measure.
Recent legislative news in which Mark Critz plays a part:
House Democrats Split In Two On Taxes
Late last night, the House of Representatives voted to approve the legislation embodying Barack Obama's deal with congressional Republicans to pass a package of tax cuts that includes tax cuts for extremely wealthy Americans, with lowered contributions from investment income and no tax paid at all by heirs inheriting up to... [more]
House Democrats Who Defend Don't Ask Don't Tell Are Mostly Lame Ducks
Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to end the discriminatory policy of Don't Ask Don't Tell, which requires the military to fire homosexual soldiers, regardless of their professional qualifications. 15 Democrats crossed the aisle to defend the discrimination and vote NO.
What's remarkable... [more]
Who Crossed The Line On Don't Ask Don't Tell
Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted to approve an amendment to a military spending bill, sponsored by Patrick Murphy. The amendment, if joined by legislation from the Senate, will repeal the military policy of Don't Ask Don't Tell. Don't Ask Don't... [more]
Roll Call of Democrats On Tax Cuts For Billionaires
Last night the House of Representatives voted to pass Barack Obama's favored tax legislation, including tax cuts for billionaires and heirs of multimillion dollar estates. There is no longer a chance to oppose the tax... [more]
Who Crossed The Aisle In House Don't Ask Don't Tell Vote?
Political blog That's My Congress notes that the House Democrats who voted against the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell yesterday are not a very politically successful group. 9... [more]
Attacking in Groups: Where Independent Expenditures Against Candidates Come Together
This spring, the money hounds of wealthy and corporate America were unleashed by the Supreme Court, let go to spend unlimited amounts on political campaigns without disclosing the sources of their funds. As a result, the... [more]