Help Support Champions for Children

Dear Friends of Children:

The general election is just seven weeks away and electing Champions for Children—on both sides of the aisle—is of capital importance. This is a critical election for Washington’s children with many priorities at risk in 2015.

From enacting foster care reforms to fighting childhood hunger, Children’s Campaign Fund scrutinizes the voting records and issue positions of Washington’s state legislators and candidates. We collect and distribute which candidates for public office are committed to improving the lives of children in order to empower voters like you.

Established in 1990, Children’s Campaign Fund (CCF) is a non-partisan political action committee comprised of children’s advocates and political veterans.

Taking a thoughtful and deliberate approach, CCF identified Legacy Leaders, including Rep. Ruth Kagi in the 32nd District, and 19 Priority Race Endorsements as CCF Champions for Children. These endorsements all have a candidate or incumbent with a proven record of leadership on children’s issues and a distinct difference between the opponents’ stance on children’s issues. You can read the 2014 CCF Scorecard and bios of the Legacy Leaders and Priority Race Endorsed Candidates.

Each member of our all-volunteer board strives to lead by example. In addition to ringing doorbells to galvanize voter support, board members contribute a substantial and meaningful financial donation during the election cycle. However, we cannot do it without you.

To date, CCF has helped all of these Champions of Children with monetary donations, independent expenditure and volunteer time. But to fully support the Priority Race Endorsed Candidates—and fill our legislature with advocates who fight for the rights of all children —we need to raise $15,000 in the next five weeks.

Time is of the essence. We are not hosting another fundraising event. This is it. This is your opportunity to make a difference in Washington policymaking!

With support from people like you, children and families will have strong voices in Olympia. Your contribution of $500, $250, $200, $200 or $50 will help elect Champions of Children in Priority Races.

Please do all you can to help make children a legislative priority by giving generously. They are our future. Thank you so much!

Yours sincerely,

Rene Murry

Chair, Children’s Campaign Fund Board

Children’s Alliance Asks State Supreme Court to Consider How Funding Freeze Effect Low-Income Kids

Monday, August 4, 2014, the Children’s Alliance, Columbia Legal Services and Washington Low Income Housing Alliance filed a brief with the Washington State Supreme Court requesting the state to consider how a freeze funding or cutting social programs in order to increase education spending would effect low-income children and families.

Read the Children's Alliance blog post here

Toxic-free Kids Advances Safety

Mary Lou Dickerson Children’s Campaign Fund Board Member

Keeping children safe leads our work with the Children’s Campaign Fund.

One critical way to help is to support policies that remove toxins from environments in which children live, learn and play.

I am proud to say that Washington state is a leader in this area. Washington Toxics Coalition, as well as several other children’s health, public safety and environmental groups which have banded together to make products for children safer through hard-won legislation such as the Toxic Toys Bill, Safe Baby Bottles Bill and the bill that phased out polybrominate biphenyl ethers (PBDEs).

The next step forward is to pass The Toxic-Free Kids and Families Act. This legislation bans six toxic-flame retardants on Washington’s Children’s Safe Products Act list of “Chemicals of High Concern for Children,” and would make it more difficult for manufacturers to replace them with chemicals that have effects that are equally bad or worse.

The bill was introduced two years ago by Rep. Kevin VanDeWege and each year has passed the Washington State House of Representatives but has died in the Senate. It will be re-introduced in the next session.

Here are a couple links I recommend to learn more about this topic:

• A recent HBO documentary,Toxic Hot Seat, gives an examination at how the chemical industry has interfered with the regulation of toxic flame retardants. Toxic Hot Seat

• A Chicago Tribune 2012 feature on big tobacco companies involved in drafting U.S., fire safety standards, put in place to protect people from home fires. Critics have said it provided a distraction to the leading cause of fire-related deaths—smoking cigarettes. The Chicago Tribune “Playing with Fire” series with multimedia features The Chicago Tribune feature “Big Tobacco wins Fire marshals as allies in flame retardant push” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention factsheet on Fire Deaths and Injuries states “smoking is the leading cause of fire-related deaths”

• Washington state firefighters are supporters of legislation such as Toxic-Free Kids Act to remove toxic flame retardants from consumer products in the state. Firefighters and those exposed to smoke from house fires are also exposed to dangerous levels of chemicals from the burning flame retardants. The Capital Record Feb. 2014 article “Firefighters want ban on chemical flame retardants in children’s products” WA Toxics Coalition blog article “Firefighters Take a Stand for Safer Chemicals”

• These harmful flame retardants that leach out of products are linked to cancer, learning disabilities and reproductive difficulties. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency states the additive process of applying flame retardants “increases the potential for the flame-retardant chemical to leach out of the product to which it is applied.” It also states children and firefighters are two of the three populations most at risk for exposure. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for Flame Retardants webpage

• A PBS Newshour of KCTS 9 of California discusses the recent change in California law related to furniture flammability standards discuss several sides of the issue from concerned parents and firefighters to a chemistry professor and a toxicologist. PBS Newshour program “Calif. law change sparks debate over use of flame retardants in furniture”

Pediatricians, nurses, faith groups, firefighters, disability rights advocates, community and environmental groups support banning these flame retardants. When you attend a state legislative campaign event, be sure to ask how the elected official intends to vote in the bill in the upcoming session.