2/15/2017
Child-advocacy group launches rating system for legislation
Jim Steyer, founder of California-based Common Sense Media. | AP Photo
Child-advocacy group launches rating system for legislation
By CARLA MARINUCCI | 03/03/16 05:43 AM EST
SAN FRANCISCO — A leading national children’s organization, which provides ratings to parents for movies, TV shows and video games, is expanding to politics, launching what’s being touted as the first-ever initiative to grade legislation specifically on whether it will help or harm children. Jim Steyer, founder of California-based Common Sense Media, the nation’s largest nonprofit dedicated to kids’ issues, told POLITICO this week that his organization will launch Common Sense Legislative Ratings, a first-in-the-nation effort to “highlight, publicize and advocate for bills that will significantly help kids, and expose bills” that could do them harm.
http://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2016/03/child-advocacy-group-launches-rating-system-for-legislation-032272#http://www.capitalnewyork....
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2/15/2017
Child-advocacy group launches rating system for legislation
The new initiative will start this week in California, but Steyer said that by next month, the effort will be expanded to rate and analyze legislation in 20 other states. Steyer, the brother of billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer, says his Common Sense organization, founded in 2003, has grown to 65 million users, including 300,000 educators, offering them more than 24,000 reviews from educators and child development experts on child-oriented media that includes movies, TV show and video games. But now, he said, the group will be looking at technology, criminal justice, family law, and legislation that affects families and kids through a political lens, and said he’s recently hired on some veteran political strategists to help in the effort. They include Buffy Wicks, a former top advisor to both Obama presidential campaigns and Olivia Morgan, a top policy adviser to both former California Gov. Gray Davis and former California First Lady Maria Shriver. Morgan is married to David Plouffe, the strategist who managed Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. “We’ve been helping parents and teachers navigate this modern world in media and technology," said Steyer, calling his group "an unparalleled platform in kids and media education." “It’s time to hold politicians' feet to the fire," he said. “We want to bring it to politics — Sacramento and Washington.” Steyer said he got the idea from watching advocacy groups like the California Chamber of Commerce, which for years has graded legislation based on its own criteria of whether a bill is “business-friendly.” A recent Sacramento Bee story noted that bills with Chamber’s trademark failing grade of “Job Killer” are almost certain to die. Only 45 of 650 such bills since 1997 have become law, the paper noted. “We thought it’s time to call out bills and legislation that impacts kids in a positive way, and in a negative way," Steyer said. "We’re a ratings service for kids and families, so why not doing it around political legislation? … California’s kids, and the nation’s kids, are our most important investment, and that’s the only constituency that Common Sense represents.” The group has published some of its first legislative ratings, including for seven different bills now being introduced in the California State Legislature. They include Assembly Bill 908, by Assemblymembers Jimmy Gomez and Autumn Burke, which would “improve the state’s Paid Family Leave program by raising the current wage
http://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2016/03/child-advocacy-group-launches-rating-system-for-legislation-032272#http://www.capitalnewyork....
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2/15/2017
Child-advocacy group launches rating system for legislation
replacement rate and expanding coverage from six to eight weeks,” and SB 1166, the “New Parent Leave Act,” by Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, which calls for providing “three months of job-protected maternity and paternity leave for almost all California employees.” In addition to the organization’s consumer platform, Common Sense Media, Steyer's efforts also have expanded to Common Sense Education, which aides teachers in utilizing education tech tools for the classroom and Common Sense Kids Action, the organization’s children’s advocacy arm. Ratings and full analysis of the bills can be viewed here:
http://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2016/03/child-advocacy-group-launches-rating-system-for-legislation-032272#http://www.capitalnewyork....
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