Voting Rights and Paid Family Leave Member Email

Voting Rights and Paid Family Leave Initiatives to Join

March 10, 2021 • Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Hi All,This week we are helping our friends circulate two sign-on letters to Congress on two different initiatives:

  • PL+US: Paid Leave for the United States

  • John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA)

These two initiatives need the support of the tech and business communities, and we strongly believe they both fit into the values our members espouse. We encourage you to show your support for both.

Paid Leave: Passing paid family and medical leave in the United States Congress is a priority of the Biden administration. You can sign on to the letter organized by PL+US here, joining others like Girls Who Code, Patagonia, Dove, Rent the Runway, Eventbrite, and Fair Play.  Please see here for a memo providing more background on the issue or feel free to contact Corrine Roller, the Legislative Director at PL+US: Paid Leave for the United States at [email protected] to learn more about this initiative. PL+US plans to release the letter this month.

Voting Rights: A number of our members have joined a business coalition to support the federal John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and we encourage you to do so as well. You can sign the letter in support by going here. After the 1965 Voting Rights Act was struck down by the Supreme Court, this new bill will again empower the DOJ to prevent voting rights violations before they impact voters. Also, a new geographic coverage formula, based on recent evidence of discrimination applied to all states equally, will similarly help safeguard the right to vote for all Americans. The ACLU and the Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights are spearheading the effort. Tech:NYC has been involved in a number of voting efforts and we will be joining the coalition and signing a letter in support. Outreach is beginning this spring. For more information, please contact Richard Eidlin at [email protected].

Thank you in advance for your consideration in joining these initiatives. The tech community in New York City has a history of standing up for the values we believe in, and paid leave and voting rights need our support now.