Civil and Human Rights Coalition Praises President Obama’s State of the Union Priorities

Washington – Nancy Zirkin, executive vice president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued the following statement in response to last night’s State of the Union address:

“We applaud President Obama for continuing to focus on achieving a brighter, more prosperous future for every person in the United States. The vision that the president expressed last night builds on our common values as Americans: that every person deserves a fair shot, that we are stronger when we provide access to opportunity, that our policies must be inclusive of the growing diversity of our nation, that helping low-income workers and growing the middle class is the key to our economic future, and that, together, we can rise above petty partisanship to achieve great things.

As the president acknowledged, while our economy has rebounded from the devastating recession he inherited six years ago, we must do more to expand opportunity and provide economic security to the millions still struggling to make ends meet. We welcome his proposals for paid sick leave, expanded child care, raising the minimum wage, ensuring equal pay for women, making low-income tax credits permanent, and lowering mortgage premiums to expand home ownership. And we must continue to make sure that all students receive a high quality education regardless of where they live, and we support his call for making community college education free.

We also agree that, as we  commemorate the 50th anniversary of the march on Selma and the passage of the Voting Rights Act, Congress must come together to make voting easier. A good start would be a bipartisan effort to restore the Voting Rights Act itself. Working across the aisle, our nation also needs Congress to improve our transportation and broadband infrastructure and to restore trust and fairness to our justice system, especially in the wake of the tragic events in Ferguson, Staten Island, and other places. In addition, it’s time for Congress to work with the administration to fix our broken immigration system.

We commend the president for his leadership and hope that Congress will step up to the challenge of addressing these and other priorities over the next two years.”

Nancy Zirkin is executive vice president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its 200-plus member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.