The JWW-organized lobby day in support of SB 861 yesterday was a huge success! JWW activists Diana Buckhantz, Joshua Brobrowsky, Beverly Magid and Susan Brooks joined our Co-Founder and President, Janice Kamenir-Reznik and our Assistant Director, Naama Haviv, in Sacramento to ask members of the CA Senate Governmental Organization Committee to support this important legislation. The bill will ban CA State contracts with companies who are in violation of SEC regulations to trace and report on their mineral supply chains.
Our JWW activists were joined by members of the Enough Project, the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR — a coalition representing Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, Global Witness and EarthRights International) Congolese Pastor Kasereka Kasomo and his wife Kahindo from the African Christian Community Church, students from the STAND chapters at UC Davis and Stanford as well as a representative from Congressman Jim McDermott’s (D-WA) office. Together we met with the 15 committee members, the Senate and Assembly leadership and representatives from the Governor’s office.
We thank all the legislators with whom we met for their time and consideration in our meetings — and more importantly, for their vote! Our bill passed the committee with a 9:1 vote today after strong testimony by JWW and our partners. Janice spoke passionately about the significant grassroots support we’ve seen for this bill already — the thousand people who have already signed our petition in support of SB 861 and the thousands more who have pledged to purchase conflict-free products and passed Conflict-Free Congregation resolutions!
We still need your support! SB 861 goes to the Fiscal Committee next and then to the floor for a vote. Haven’t signed our petition yet? Support SB 861 here!