✍️ Please contact your legislators regarding important concerns through the following petitions! ✍️
[Petitions updated periodically.]
Because of the budget bill passed by Congress this summer, over 4 million families could lose their healthcare coverage, and 22 million working people will see massive increases in healthcare premiums at the end of the year. This funding bill must also include policies to prevent the Trump administration from unlawfully slashing programs that Congress already passed legislation to fund. Take action to tell your representative and senators to work together to end this shutdown, protect healthcare, and save critical programs.
United Campus Works — Living Wages for All Campus Workers at UTK! (LINK)
The current $15/hr minimum wage on campus leaves many full-time employees struggling to make ends meet, including disproportionate numbers of Black and women workers. UTK is one of Knoxville’s largest employers and has the ability to positively impact our community. Rather than suppressing local wages and contributing to a high, racially-uneven poverty rate, UTK should pay a $20/hour minimum wage to attract and maintain a more stable workforce, contribute to the sustainability of living in Knoxville, and support local businesses.
Regardless of one’s race or ethnicity, programs like Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, SNAP, and Veterans benefits provide a lifeline to millions of Americans, ensuring that those who have sacrificed and contributed so much to our nation receive the support they deserve. Government funding decisions should not hurt the elderly, veterans, or those benefitting from Social Security. Cutting these essential lifelines to fund yet another billionaire tax break is unacceptable and is un-American.
Since Trump’s first executive order in March ripped away collective bargaining rights from nearly 1 million workers, it’s only gotten worse. We need every senator—Republican, Democrat and independent—who says they support America’s unions to vote for the Protect America’s Workforce Act and restore federal workers’ union rights.
Regardless of whether the president cites false crime statistics, villainizes immigrants, or claims peaceful protest is insurrection, sending armed federal agents and military troops into our communities is unjustified and dangerous. Tell Congress: Military troops do not belong on our streets.
Congress must demand immediate access and block all federal funds until this environmental and humanitarian disaster is shut down. Tell Congress: Shut down “Alligator Alcatraz” and other makeshift detention centers like it.
We must stop any effort to criminalize the healthcare that trans people need. Send your message loud and clear: Tell your members of Congress to oppose attempts to criminalize gender-affirming medical care.
Our data is protected by laws that limit who can access it and how it can be used. But DOGE is forcing its way into the government’s most protected systems without consideration of the longstanding privacy safeguards mandated by Congress. We need to demand that our private records not be illegally accessed, analyzed, or weaponized by Trump, DOGE, and an unaccountable team of unvetted outsiders. Congress must step up, do its job, and check the president’s violations of our rights.
No person should be deported to face torture, and no one should be disappeared and denied the ability to contact their families or a lawyer. Tell Congress: Demand President Trump bring our people home.
The SAVE Act isn’t about safeguarding elections. It’s about silencing voters. We can’t let this bill get any further: Tell your Senators to reject this dangerous bill and protect our voting rights.
This SAVE Act threatens to disenfranchise millions of U.S. citizens: 146 million Americans do not have a passport, and 69 million women who have married do not have a birth certificate that matches their new legal name. Working-class and low-income Americans would also be disproportionately disenfranchised if the bill became law, as the vast majority of these groups do not possess a passport. This bill has already passed in the House of Representatives. Tell the Senate to vote no on the SAVE Act and protect our right to vote.
Tell Congress: Pass a constitutional amendment restoring presidential liability – because those who criminally abuse the office must be held accountable. No one is above the law: We elect presidents, NOT kings.