Election Day Polling Locations in Collin Co.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, November 8, 2011, Texans will vote on ten amendments to the Texas State Constitution, plus local propositions, as may have been authorized by municipalities. Collin County is again taking part in the "Voting Center" pilot program with the Secretary of State. This program allows any voter registered in the Collin County to vote at any polling place through out the county, not just the precinct where they are registered.

Several cities in Collin Co. have authorized "special election" ballot propositions for their respective jurisdictions. Check the appropriate sample ballot style for your election precinct to see if your city has a "special election" proposition on your ballot. Don't know your precinct number? Find out how to locate your precinct number by clicking here.

Click here for information on the ten amendments to the Texas State Constitution.

Click here for November 8, 2011 Election Day Polling Locations in Collin Co.

Click here for background on Plano's Nov. 8 "Special Election" ballot propositions.

Want More People to Vote? Put More Information Online

Tomorrow is a big day in Ohio, where voters are expected to defeat a ballot measure called Issue 2 and, in so doing, overturn legislation that severely curtails the collective bargaining rights of public-sector employees. If they can figure out where to go to vote.

Introducing the Voting Information Project
Pew Charitable Trust

Forty-three percent of all voters under the age of 45 will look first for voting information online, according to new poll numbers from the Voting Info Project.

The Project is backed by the Pew Center on the States and a bipartisan team including people from the progressive New Organizing Institute and the Republican-leaning online communications firm Engage.

In addition, 57 percent of currently registered voters said they would look up what was on their ballot before voting, according to the project's poll results.

The Generation Gap And The 2012 Election

Not since 1972 has generation played such a significant role in voter preferences as it has in recent elections. In the last four national elections, generational differences have mattered more than they have in decades. According to the exit polls, younger people have voted substantially more Democratic than other age groups in each election since 2004, while older voters have cast more ballots for Republican candidates in each election since 2006.

The latest national polls suggest this pattern may well continue in 2012. Millennial generation voters are inclined to back Barack Obama for reelection by a wide margin in a matchup against Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate who has run the strongest against Obama in many polls. By contrast, Silent generation voters are solidly behind Romney.

In between the youngest and the oldest voters are the Baby Boom generation and Generation X. Both groups are less supportive of Obama than they were in 2008 and are now on the fence with respect to a second term for the president.

One of the largest factors driving the current generation gap is the arrival of diverse and Democratic-oriented Millennials. Shaped by the politics and conditions of the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies, this group holds liberal attitudes on most social and governmental issues.

Read the full story at Pew Research...

Record Number Of Americans In Poverty As Wealth Gap Grows

According to new figures released by U.S. Census Bureau, 49.1 million — or 16 percent — of Americans are now living below the poverty line. The numbers are an increase from 2010, when the previous record was at 46.2 million (16 percent). Americans 65 or older had the biggest jump in poverty, hitting 15.9 percent from the previous total of 9 percent.

The poverty rate isn’t the only economic figure setting an unwanted record, as the wealth gap between old and young Americans has also reached its widest ever. A typical U.S. household headed by a person age 65 or older has a net worth 47 times greater than the average household headed by someone under 35, according to the Pew Research Center.

Those figures also include 37 percent of younger households with a net worth of zero or less, a demographic that has doubled since 1984.

Pew Research Center: Rising Gap in Economic Well-Being

Obama Tops GOP Foes

One year out before President Barack Obama faces voters in his bid for re-election, he encounters an American public that remains deeply pessimistic about the state of the country and its economy, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. (PDF)

Nearly three-quarters of respondents believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction; just 25 percent think the U.S. economy will improve in the next 12 months; and a solid majority says the country is experiencing the start of a long-term decline.

Those attitudes have helped shape their opinions of the president, with majorities disapproving of his overall job performance and his economic handling, and with nearly 75 percent saying that the Obama administration has fallen short of their expectations on the economy and improving oversight of Wall Street and the banks.

Yet despite those views, Obama continues to run ahead of the Republican presidential front-runners in hypothetical general-election match ups — leading former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by six points and former businessman Herman Cain by 15 points.

Just how grim and negative is it? The poll asked respondents to give a single word or short phrase to best describe how they feel about where things stand in the country. Some of the answers:

• “We are in the dump.”
• “Very unstable.”
• “We’re in the gutter.”
• “Very challenging.”

Overall, 58 percent of these responses are negative, 33 percent are neutral and just 9 percent are positive.

What’s more, a combined 76 percent agree with the statement that the current economic structure of the country is out of balance and favors a small proportion of the rich over the rest of the country, and that America needs to reduce the power of the banks and corporations. That number includes 62 percent of Republicans and 61 percent of Tea Party supporters who agree with the statement. And 53 percent agree with the statement that the national debt must be cut significantly by reducing spending and the size of government.

Read the full story at msnbc.

New Redistricting Maps And Candidate Filing Deadlines For 2012

TxRedistricting.org: Proposed order on election deadlines

Thursday evening, Chad Dunn, counsel for the Texas Democratic Party, submitted a proposal for adjusting election filing deadlines in light of the not yet complete process of drawing interim legislative maps. Dunn indicated in a footnote that the proposal had been worked on by both the parties.

Under the proposal submitted by Dunn:

• The candidate filing period would run from November 28 to December 15 (rather than November 12 to December 12).
• The requirement that a candidate for the state house or state senate live in his or her district for one year before November 6, 2012 would be modified to only require that the candidate have lived in the district from December 15, 2011 through November 6, 2012.
• Counties would be given until December 13 to redraw precinct boundaries.
• The ballot order draw in each county would remain December 20.

The San Antonio three-judge federal court panel adjudicating a Texas redistricting lawsuit signed a court order on Friday Nov. 4, 2011 to change 2012 election filing deadlines, in light of the not yet completed process of drawing interim redistricting maps. Here's the new deadline schedule:

November 28: Candidate filing period opens (had been November 12).

December 10: If an officeholder whose term is not up in 2012 resigns on or before this day, the office will be included on the March 2012 primary ballot (had been December 7).

December 13: Deadline for adjustments to precinct boundaries as a result of new legislative lines (was October 1).

December 15 @ 6 p.m.: Last day to candidate filing (had been December 12).

December 16: Last day a candidate can withdraw and have his or her name omitted from the primary ballot. A candidate who dies or is declared ineligible by this day also will be omitted from the primary ballot (had been December 13).

December 19: Last day to file for an unexpired term (unchanged). Also deadline for state chairs to deliver lists of statewide candidates and candidates for multi county offices to county chairs (had been December 16).

December 20: Ballot order draw in each county (unchanged).

December 22: Deadline for state and county chairs to deliver candidate lists to appropriate election officials (unchanged).

January 13: County election officials must send out new voter registration certificates by this date.

March 6: Democratic and Republican primaries (unchanged).

The Texas congressional map drawn by Republicans is almost certain to be thrown out for the next election, costing them a few seats in the House and increasing Democrats’ opportunities to try to retake control of the chamber next fall. The map needs to be approved by the federal government because of Texas’s history of racial discrimination, and members of a three-judge federal panel indicated at a Wednesday hearing that they will not allow it to go into effect immediately.

This will trigger a temporary court-drawn map in Texas that will not be nearly as favorable to the Republicans. “For Congress, that cheats us out of three seats,” one Republican was overheard griping to another after the hearing.

War On Terror "Real I.D." Driver's License Federal Law Meets State Voter Photo I.D.

You probably heard about 96-year-old Dorothy Cooper who couldn't get a free voter photo ID card at a Tennessee Driver Service Center in October. Tennessee has a voter photo ID law nearly identical to Texas' new ID law. Cooper never had a driver's license so she had to get a "free" voter photo ID card to vote in future elections. Even though she had a birth certificate and other ID the Driver Service Center wouldn't issue an ID card because she didn't have her marriage certificate.

Perhaps you've heard about a 93-year-old Tennessee woman, Thelma Mitchell, who cleaned the state Capitol for 30 years, including the governor’s office and who won’t be able to vote for the first time in decades because she also couldn't get a "free" voter photo ID card at a Tennessee Driver Service Center. Ms. Mitchell was even accused of being an undocumented immigrant because she couldn’t produce a birth certificate:

Mitchell, who was delivered by a midwife in Alabama in 1918, has never had a birth certificate. But when she told that to a drivers’ license clerk, he suggested she might be an illegal immigrant.

Maybe you've heard about a 84-year-old Brokaw, Wisconsin woman, Ruthelle Frank, who won’t be able to vote for the first time in decades because she also couldn't get a "free" voter photo ID card at a Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles. Born after a difficult birth at her home in 1927, Frank never received an official birth certificate. Without her birth certificate, she can’t secure the state ID card that the new voter photo law requires. The state Register of Deeds in Madison has a record of her birth, but the attending physician at Frank’s birth misspelled her maiden name, so the name on her state recorded birth record does not match the name given on Frank's other identity documents.

The Tennessee and Wisconsin Departments of Motor Vehicles were following requirements of the federal Real ID Act of 2005, which is mandated to take effect in all 50 states by January 2013. After January 2013 even young women across the U.S., who already have a driver's license, may face the same ID road block as 96 year old Dorothy Cooper.

After the commercial airliner attacks of September 11, 2001 the federal government implemented a "war on terror" photo driver's license "Real ID" law, with regulatory oversight given to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The Federal Real ID law mandates state driver's license and personal ID card issuance regulations that require U.S. citizens to present a state certified birth certificate and other identifying documents in order to obtain or renew their license or ID card after January 2013.

The Federal Real ID law has transformed state issued driver's licenses into a de facto national photo identity card that is required to board commercially operated airline flights, conduct official business with federal agencies, apply for Social Security, and increasingly, to vote.

The Real ID driver's license law was enacted in 2005, when Republicans controlled Congress and the White House, as a response to the fact that several of the 19 foreign hijackers on 9/11 had obtained state driver’s licenses. Many states are now applying the federally mandated anti-terror photo "Real ID" law to voters by enacting voter photo ID laws.

Last May Governor Rick Perry (R) signed SB14 into law requiring voters to present a limited selection of unexpired government issued photo identification to qualify to vote in Texas elections. The most widely held photo ID on that short list of voter photo identification documents is the Texas driver's license.

The Texas Secretary of State (SOS) reports that 605,576 registered Texas voters do not appear to have a Texas driver’s license or personal ID card. The SOS report reveals that in 27 of Texas' 254 counties, at least 10 percent of the registered voters might be unable to cast ballots. In Presidio County in Southwest Texas as many as 25.9% of registered voters might not have the required photo ID, which will block as many as 1,313 out of the 5,066 registered voters in that county from casting ballots in any election.

New photo ID laws for voting will be in effect for the first time for the 2012 election in five states -- Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin. Those five states have a combined citizen voting age population of just under 29 million. The Brennan Center for Justice issued a report estimating that the newly enacted Real ID voting laws in those five states "could make it significantly harder for 3.2 million (11 percent) of those potential voters who do not already have government issued photo ID. With 18.8 million voting age citizens in Texas, as counted by the 2010 U.S. census, as many as 2.1 million (11 percent) voting age citizens in Texas do not hold a Texas driver’s license, personal ID card or other government issued photo ID document.

Even Texas voters who already hold a Texas driver's license may find it challenging to renew their driver's license when the federal "Real ID" law takes effect on January 15, 2013.

What is the federally mandated anti-terror photo "Real ID" law?

Mississippians Vote To Outlaw Birth Control Pills

This blog has published several articles over the last three years stating that social conservative Republicans have been trying to again criminalize contraceptives every since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized contraceptive use in 1965. Now this from Think Progress...

Personhood USA Confirms That Mississippi Abortion Ban Would Outlaw Birth Control Pills

Next Tuesday, Mississippians will go to the polls to decide on Initiative 26, a personhood amendment to the state constitution that defines a person as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.” Personhood amendments represent an extreme reach into a family’s privacy, essentially criminalizing abortion and potentially outlawing common forms of birth control.

Right-wing supporters of Mississippi’s personhood amendment, however, decry the fact that the bill will ban birth control as “scare tactics.” “It’s an outright lie that Initiative 26 would ban birth control pills,” said American Family Association Executive Director Brad Prewitt. “Stopping a pregnancy is not the issue; ending a pregnancy is.” Unfortunately for proponents, the Personhood movement spokesman Walter Hoye stated the opposite on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show. As the Florida Independent reports, when asked if there were any restrictions on birth control in the amendment, Hoye answered “no…well, yes,” adding, “any birth control that ends the life of a human being will be impacted by this measure,” including the pill:

HOYE: Any birth control that ends the life of a human being will be impacted by this measure.

REHM: So that would then include the IUD [intra-uterine device]. What about the birth control pill?

HOYE: If that falls into the same category, yes.

REHM: So you’re saying that the birth control pill could be considered as taking the life of a human being?

HOYE: I’m saying that once the egg and the oocyte come together and you have that single-celled embryo, at that point you have human life, you’ve got a human being and we’re taking the life of a human being with some forms of birth control and if birth control falls into that category, yes I am.

The “profoundly ambiguous” language of the amendment will affect more than just birth control. Because fertilization can be defined as either the sperm’s penetration of the egg or, as Hoye suggests, when the embryo is formed even before implantation in the uterus, the amendment could ban “forms of birth control, stem cell derivation and the destruction of embryos created though in vitro fertilization (IVF).”

Indeed, as Personhood USA President Keith Mason stated outright, “it would ban some current practices of IVF” because he sees it as “the creation of 30 or 60 embryos and then picking through them to see which ones are most likely boys or girls, or basically looking at the ones you want to give life to and destroying the rest.”

Be it an outright attack on a constitutionally protected procedure, on a woman’s personal right to prevent pregnancy, or even on a couples chance to have a child, supporters and opponents agree that Mississippi’s personhood amendment is a far-reaching blow to a woman’s — and family’s — reproductive rights.

The Birth Control Solution

The Men Behind The War On Women

Huffington Post: A group of men with no real background in law or medicine, but blessed with a strong personal interest in women’s bodies, have quietly influenced all of the major anti-abortion legislation over the past several years. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops may be one of the quietest, yet most powerful lobbies on Capitol Hill, with political allies that have enabled them to roll back decades of law and precedent in reproductive rights of women.

Over the past two years the GOP-controlled House of Representatives has launched one of the most extreme assaults on women's choice the U.S. has seen in decades. Republicans voted twice to slash federal family planning funds for low-income women, moved to prevent women from using their own money to buy insurance plans that cover abortion, introduced legislation that would force women to have ultrasounds before receiving an abortion and, most recently, passed a bill that will allow hospitals to refuse to perform emergency abortions for women with life-threatening pregnancy complications.

DOJ: Texas Redistricting Maps Arbitrary

On Friday Sept. 23, 2011, the U.S. Department Justice (USDOJ) said that based on their preliminary investigation, a congressional redistricting map signed into law by Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry appears to have been "adopted, at least in part, for the purpose of diminishing the ability of citizens of the United States, on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group, to elect their preferred candidates of choice to Congress."

USDOJ's Civil Rights Division specifically challenged the redistricting maps for Texas congressional Districts 23 and 27, which they say would not provide Hispanic citizens with the ability to elect candidates of their choice to the U.S. House of Representatives.

In papers filed with a special three-judge panel in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday Oct. 25, 2011, the Department of Justice and individual parties sharply criticized the standard the State of Texas wants the D.C. panel to use in evaluating arguments about ‘retrogression’ in the state’s redistricting maps.

There is “ample circumstantial evidence” that the congressional and state representative redistricting maps signed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry had not only the effect but the intent of limiting the voting power of Hispanic voters, Justice Department lawyers said in the court filing.

Early Voting Starts Today

Today is the start of Early Voting for the November 8, 2011 Constitutional Amendment Election. It will run through next Friday, November 4, with Election Day on Tuesday the 8th. You can see details by clicking to this link.

A majority of the voters must approve the amendments before they can be implemented. Several cities have also authorized "special election" ballot propositions for their respective jurisdictions. Check the appropriate sample ballot style for your election precinct to see if your city has a "special election" proposition on your ballot. Don't know your precinct number? Find out how to locate your precinct number by clicking here.

Election Day Vote Centers Coming to Collin Co. Again For This Nov. 8th Election:

Election Day Vote Centers work almost exactly like Early Voting Polling Places. On Election Day any voter registered in the Collin County can vote at any polling place through out the county.

League Of Women Voters Collin County Information:

• Voters Guide: 2011 Constitutional Amendment Election, November 8, 2011

Collin Co. Election Registrar Information for the November 8, 2011 Constitutional Amendment and Special Election:

• Early Voting Locations & Hours
• Election Day Polling Locations & Sample Ballots
• Registration Search

Texas Secretary of State postings for the Nov. 8, 2011 Election:

• Proclamation (PDF)
• Sample Ballot (PDF)
• Explanatory Statements

For another comprehensive look at the state constitutional amendments read the House Research Organization's Voter Guide.

Voter Photo ID Requirement Public Notification Starts With The Constitutional Amendment Election

Fliers notifying voters about the new photo identification requirement to vote starting in 2012 will be handed out during the upcoming November 8^th Constitutional Amendment Election.

Birtherism I Can Agree With

Picture is from the Occupy Olympia rally - Hat tip to Jobsanger. I'd like to see that birth certificate, too!

After 46 Years Will Contraceptives Again Be Criminalized?

Many people do not remember that the purchase and use of birth control products, even by married couples, was against the law in many states until 1965. There are those who, for the last 46 years, have worked to reverse the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut Supreme Court finding that women have a fundamental "right of privacy" to make family planning decisions, which includes the right to learn about and use contraceptive products for birth control.

Rick Santorum pledged to repeal all federal funding for contraception, during a recent interview with CaffeinatedThoughts.com editor Shane Vander Hart, arguing that the use of contraceptives devalues the act of procreation.

“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country,” the former Pennsylvania senator explained. “It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and nearly all the other GOP presidential candidates support the idea that contraceptives should be outlawed though the adoption of a "life begins at conception" constitutional amendment -- even if they don't fully understand the measure will outlaw most common contraceptives.

The key is in the definition of conception:

Former Climate Change Skeptic Now Says, It's Real!

University of California-Berkeley physicist Richard Muller is well known for believing that climate scientists were wrong in their assessments that earth's climate systems are changing due to global warming. He has said publicly that he had doubts about the accuracy of global temperature reading at temperature recording stations, upon which, most climate change models are based. For that public skepticism Muller had been embraced by the climate science denying crowd.

Who Are The 99 Percent?

We now know what they want, what social networks and online tools they use and who doesn’t like them. But just who are the Occupy Wall Street protesters?

They define themselves as just plain people; the 99 percent who are getting screwed by the 1 percent. It might be why 99% of the cops are so cheerful and accommodating in so many cities where the Occupy Movement has taken hold.

It is a movement whose time has come, as evidenced by its incredible growth in the last month. As if a lot of folks were waiting for something to start, and when it did, they joined.

OWS and the entire Occupy Together movement has been called unfocused, loud, a mob, unwashed, and far worse by those who feel threatened by something outside of their sphere if influence.

Corporate America Pushing To Eliminate Paid Sick Days

Think Progress: Do you really want you or your colleagues to go to work sick?

Recently, a string of cities and states have passed new ordinances that would require paid sick days for employees at certain employers. Just last week, Philadelphia’s city council passed a second version of a paid sick leave bill after the mayor vetoed the earlier one. Earlier this year, Seattle approved paid sick days legislation, while Connecticut became the first state with a state-wide requirement.

Now, the Center for Media and Democracy’s PR Watch has published an expose of how the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — a corporate front group that farms out legislation to almost a third of state legislators nationwide — is drafting legislation on behalf of its wealthy conglomerate funders to repeal these ordinances.

PR Watch obtained documents from ALEC’s 2011 Annual Meeting showing that one of the group’s committees — the Labor and Business Regulation Subcommittee of the Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force — focused its entire meeting on the issue of paid sick leave. Task force members, who are legislators, were given copies of a bill that enables state legislatures to override municipal paid sick days laws. The same bill was used in Wisconsin to override Milwaukee’s paid sick days requirement.

Read the full story @ Think Progress

Also see ALEC Exposed - And It's Connection To Texas Laws.

The Need For Progressive Alternatives

A fundamental war has been waged in this nation since its founding, between progressive forces pushing us forward and regressive forces pulling us backward. The Occupy Wall Street Movement is the newest incarnation of progressive forces again pushing forward against the drag of regressive forces.

Progressives believe in openness, equal opportunity, and tolerance. Progressives assume we’re all in it together: We all benefit from public investments in schools and health care and infrastructure. And we all do better with strong safety nets, reasonable constraints on Wall Street and big business, and a truly progressive tax system. Progressives worry when the rich and privileged become powerful enough to undermine democracy.

Regressives take the opposite positions:

by RobertReich

Republican presidential candidates debated again last night. And once again, Americans heard the standard regressive litany: government is bad, Medicare and Medicaid should be cut, [the Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act that the GOP calls] "Obamacare" is killing the economy, undocumented immigrants are taking our jobs, the military should get more money, taxes should be lowered on corporations and the rich, and regulations should be gutted.

OWS And The Democratic Party

by RobertReich

Will the Wall Street Occupiers morph into a movement that has as much impact on the Democratic Party as the Tea Party has had on the GOP? Maybe. But there are reasons for doubting it.

Tea Partiers have been a mixed blessing for the GOP establishment – a source of new ground troops and energy but also a pain in the assets with regard to attracting independent voters. As Rick Perry and Mitt Romney square off, that pain will become more evident.

So far the Wall Street Occupiers have helped the Democratic Party. Their inchoate demand that the rich pay their fair share is tailor-made for the Democrats’ new plan for a 5.6 percent tax on millionaires, as well as the President’s push to end the Bush tax cut for people with incomes over $250,000 and to limit deductions at the top.

And the Occupiers give the President a potential campaign theme. “These days, a lot of folks who are doing the right thing aren’t rewarded and a lot of folks who aren’t doing the right thing are rewarded,” he said at his news conference this week, predicting that the frustration fueling the Occupiers will “express itself politically in 2012 and beyond until people feel like once again we’re getting back to some old-fashioned American values.”

But if Occupy Wall Street coalesces into something like a real movement, the Democratic Party may have more difficulty digesting it than the GOP has had with the Tea Party.

What The Occupy Wall Street Protesters Want!

Last week we looked at the question all of main stream media seemed to be asking - "What Do The Occupy Wall Street Protesters Want?"

Clearly, "Occupy," "The Other 98 Percent," and "The 99 Percent" activists want a fair and balanced playing field that the federal government's system of oversight and regulation provided to American society, before conservatives dismantled it in their fervor for deregulation and elimination of taxes payed by billion dollar corporations and the richest 1 percent of Americans.

We observed that an obvious way to recreate that fair and balanced American field of play would be to reverse the deregulation of Pres. Roosevelt's New Deal protections for the American financial system and middle class Americans, and to reverse the unbalanced and unfair tax cuts given to the richest Americans and multinational multibillion dollar corporations who have used their tax cuts to offshore tens of millions of American jobs.

Earlier today, Mother Jones published an article titled, "Occupy Protesters' One Demand: A New New Deal:"

"What is our one demand?"

That question, put forth by one of the original and most iconic posters advertising the occupation of Zuccotti Park, still hasn't been answered. Many veteran occupiers believe that making specific demands would be counterproductive, while others are working hard to craft concrete proposals they think everyone can agree on.

One of the latter is Daniel Lerner, a middle-aged physicist and active member of Occupy Wall Street's Demands Working Group, which on Sunday voted to push for a New Deal-style program...

... "We are talking about direct public employment, where you are working for the government—everything from wielding a shovel to educating engineers," says Lerner, who drew inspiration from the Depression-era Civil Work and Works Progress Administrations.

The 35 members of the Demands Group will vote Tuesday afternoon on how to build support for the plan before taking it up with the General Assembly, the open-ended group that serves as the protest's governing body.

Communicating through a Yahoo Groups site to draft a list of demands, the Demands Working Group did publish a list draft Tuesday afternoon on their Google sites website. Along with the draft list of demands the Working Group also calls for a National Convention to convene next July: