Here are Texas Impact's precinct resolutions, as well as a couple we've had sent in from members.

TEXAS PRECINCT RESOLUTIONS 2008

CHILD HEALTH INSURANCE

WHEREAS Texas children are uninsured at more than 1.5 times the national rate according to the U.S. Census Bureau;
WHEREAS the National Institutes of Health have reported that children without insurance are less likely to receive timely care than their insured counterparts;
WHEREAS untreated illness leads to lost days of school for children;
WHEREAS African American and Hispanic children more likely to be uninsured than Anglo children, putting them at an educational disadvantage;
WHEREAS untreated illness constitutes a threat to all children in group situations such as classrooms;
WHEREAS lack of timely and appropriate treatment for children’s illnesses leads to missed work, lost wages, and lost employment for parents, threatening family financial security;
WHEREAS timely and appropriate care is less costly to individuals, insurance companies and the public than emergency room care;
WHEREAS inappropriate use of emergency room care due to lack of insurance saps emergency room capacity, threatening the health of insured individuals in true emergency situations; and
WHEREAS widespread lack of insurance threatens the health care infrastructure in many local communities in Texas; and
WHEREAS Texas’ Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is a cost-effective source of children’s health insurance; and
WHEREAS many other states have expanded health insurance to children by allowing families with no access to private insurance to purchase coverage through existing state-sponsored child health insurance,

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT

this, the ______ Precinct Convention of the _____________________ Party in
______________________ County, calls upon the Governor and Texas Legislature to pass legislation authorizing subsidized and full-cost buy-in options for the Texas Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for families with no access to private insurance.

Be it further resolved that we call upon our State Convention to adopt this resolution.
Ratified by:
Precinct Chair Name
Date
Contact Information

CREATE A TEXAS SOLAR REBATE

WHEREAS Texas has the greatest solar resource potential in the nation; and
WHEREAS The Legislature helped create a boom for wind power in Texas; and
WHEREAS The price of solar panels has declined dramatically over the last two decades, but it is still not cost-effective for most homeowners and businesses; and
WHEREAS Solar power is pollution free and unlike coal or nuclear power, has no water requirements; and
WHEREAS By 2012, a modest statewide solar rebate program would eliminate 5000 tons of smog pollution, eliminate 3 million tons of global warming pollution, and conserve 11.6 million gallons of water; and
WHEREAS air pollution hurts Texas communities because it makes people sick, increases in local property taxes to pay for uncompensated
health care and increases health insurance costs for everyone; and
WHEREAS Austin’s municipally owned utility has a very successful solar rebate program that has helped hundreds of homeowners, schools and businesses install solar panels, but this rebate isn’t available in the rest of Texas; and
WHEREAS A small investment now could bring billions in investment to the state over the next decade;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT
this, the ______ Precinct Convention of the _____________________ Party in
______________________ County calls upon the Governor and Texas Legislature to pass legislation establishing a statewide solar rebate program.

Be it further resolved that we call upon our State Convention to adopt this resolution.
Ratified by:
Precinct Chair Name
Date
Contact Information

NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY STANDARD

WHEREAS Texas’ renewable power standard (RPS) has been highly effective
in increasing the supply of renewable power available to Texas consumers;
WHEREAS Texas leads the nation in potential for renewable power production;
WHEREAS the renewable power industry has already provided more than 2,500 new jobs in Texas and $12 million in revenue for schools;
WHEREAS establishing a national renewable power standards would increase demand for Texas-generated renewable power; and
WHEREAS increasing the share of electricity in the US that comes from renewable sources help protect the environment and reduce the pollution that causes smog and global warming;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT
this, the ______ Precinct Convention of the _____________________ Party in
______________________ County calls upon the Texas Congressional Delegation to pass legislation establishing a national renewable energy standard (RES) requiring at least 20 percent of electricity generated in the United States to come from safe, clean, renewable resources.

Be it further resolved that we call upon our State Convention to adopt this resolution.
Ratified by:
Precinct Chair Name
Date
Contact Information

Energy Efficient/ Renewable Energy Economy for Texas

WHEREAS; Texas skies should be clean and pristine, but the air in the Dallas/Forth Worth, El Paso, Houston and Beaumont/Port Arthur areas fails to meet health based standards, and air quality in Austin, San Antonio and Tyler-Longview is close to violating health based standards, and the state air plans for these regions remain inadequate, and

WHEREAS; Five additional coal plants are under construction and three more are proposed for Texas despite opposition and the fact that studies show strong links between air pollution and asthma, respiratory illness, strokes, and deaths from lung cancer and heart disease, and 1160 Texans die prematurely every year from power plant particle pollution, and

WHEREAS; Coal-burning power plants are the state’s largest industrial sources of smog-forming nitrogen oxides and toxic mercury emissions, which contaminate fish and damage the developing brains of babies and children, and coal-burning power plants also emit sulfur pollution, that causes acid rain and increased deaths from lung cancer and heart disease; and Texas coal plants rank first in the nation for carbon dioxide emissions, which contribute to global warming, and

WHEREAS; Seven additional commercial nuclear reactors are being proposed for Texas and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is fast-tracking reactor licenses through a new combined licensing process, although Texas has as much wind energy potential as all 104 nuclear reactors in the United States combined, and

WHEREAS; Nuclear reactors are not an answer to global warming, and reactors in South Texas came in six times over budget and came online eight years late, and unsolved economic, security, safety, weapons proliferation, water use and radioactive waste problems make nuclear power unviable, putting the health of Texans at risk, and uranium mining for nuclear fuel has contaminated drinking water in some parts of South Texas, and

WHEREAS; Texas can and should meet future energy needs and lead the nation by developing wind and solar power technologies, greenbuilding standards and improved building codes, capturing waste energy through combined heat and power, and by increasing energy efficiency, which benefits consumers, businesses and industries while reducing power demand,

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, by the _____ Precinct (Pct #) of the Democratic Party of Texas that a moratorium on coal and nuclear plants should be immediately enacted and strongly enforced in order to protect our economy and our climate, and to protect the health of all Texans, especially our children, and that Texas should lead the nation into a clean, sustainable energy future through pursuing energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Signed, this 4th day of March, 2008, by

_____________________________________, Precinct Chair __________________ County

MORATORIUM ON BORDER WALL CONSTRUCTION

WHEREAS the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) border wall project is based on politics rather than a coherent operational strategy and will not stop immigration or smuggling and will do nothing to protect the US from terrorism; and…

WHEREAS the border wall project could have devastating consequences for the environment, the economy, and the communities of the border region; including walling off the Rio Grande from the towns and cities that have grown up on its banks; and…

WHEREAS DHS is moving quickly without regard to local opposition to complete 370 miles of walls along the border by December of this year, an arbitrary date coinciding with the last month of the Bush Administration’s period in office; and…

WHEREAS Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has stated that there is no imminent threat of terrorist incursions on the southern border and that the northern border poses a far greater threat; and…

WHEREAS Border Patrol’s own statistics note that illegal crossings of the southern border have decreased significantly between 2006 and 2007, including a 34% decrease in the Rio Grande Valley Sector and 46% decrease in the Del Rio Sector where there have never been walls; yet both sectors are slated to get walls despite this decrease and in spite of intense local opposition; and…

WHEREAS by contrast the heavily fortified San Diego Sector, where a triple-layer wall divides the border, saw a 7% increase in illegal crossings, suggesting that walls are not a meaningful deterrent for undocumented crossings; and a June 2007 Congressional Research Service Report found that the walls in San Diego had “no discernible impact” on the number of people entering the US illegally; and Border Patrol has stated repeatedly that a wall only slows crossers down by a few minutes, rather than stopping them; and…

WHEREAS in the hurricane-prone Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, as well as in Presidio, Texas, in the Big Bend area, the border wall is planned to be constructed on or near the flood control levees that parallel the Rio Grande with no studies published that describe what impact the proposed wall would have on flooding or on the integrity of the levee system; and…

WHEREAS DHS has continued to operate under the false assumption that the harsh conditions of the desert are a deterrent for people seeking entry into the US, when indeed the General Accounting Office found that the number of people who have died attempting to enter the US doubled between 1995 and 2005; and…

WHEREAS Section 102 of the Real ID Act of 2005 gives Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff the power to waive all laws in order to build the border wall without regard to the negative consequences it will have in the border region and which he has invoked three times in order to build walls in California and Arizona, waiving a host of laws in their entirety, including the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act; and…

WHEREAS this waiver provision of the Real ID Act also denies individuals and organizations the right to sue DHS for the damages the border wall will cause, limiting lawsuits only to those based on constitutional grounds; and…

WHEREAS the wall would be placed in the middle of the property of the University of Texas at Brownsville’s campus, thereby limiting free access to significant portions of the campus; and. . .

WHEREAS the wall is meant to be a permanent structure with permanent consequences and is an irresponsible venture without full knowledge of what those consequences will be;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT

This, the ____Precinct Convention of the __________ Party in _______________County, call for a moratorium on the construction of the walls along the US-Mexican border and an immediate suspension and repeal of Section 102 of the Real ID Act of 2005.

Be it further resolved that we call upon our State Convention to adopt this resolution.

Ratified by:

Precinct Chair Name:

Date: