1. We crowd-sourced the Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act in about seven weeks at Daily Kos. More than 700 Kossacks supported us. We also created state version of the Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act.
2. We sent the law to all the NAACP branches. At least one local branch forwarded the proposed law to the national headquarters in Washington, DC. Hilary Shelton, the successor of Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP, wrote to tell us they wanted to promote our law and add it to the three laws they had already been promoting. Now they have four laws to promote.
3. We sent the finalized version of our federal bill to all of the members of the Black Congressional Caucus and to the leadership of the Progressive Caucus.
4. We sent our law to the American Civil Liberties Union, which responded "We want to partner with you."
5. President Obama signed a law in December 2014 which included pieces of our law.
4. The President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing issued a report in February 2015 which included parts of our bill.
5. The Department of Justice investigated the Ferguson Police Department and issued a report by on March 4, 2015. The report can be read here (PDF). That report included parts of our bill.
6. The Campaign Zero action-plan recommendations were informed by the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing (Vox.com).
At this time we have no direct evidence that our Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act was directly quoted in any of the above reports.
Our Freedom of Information Act project
1. Sent Public Records requests to all the Republican or State Legislators who were holding up Medicaid Expansion asking them the "Catch 22" questions: What have you done to find out how many people are dying because you refuse to Expand Medicaid, and, What are you doing to find out how many people are filing for bankruptcy because of your refusal?
2. We received responses from all the Governors save three: Wyoming, North Carolina and Kansas. (Details below.)
3. All of the responses were that the Governors or State Legislators have done nothing to find out how many people they are killing or forcing into bankruptcy. Except that Texas did have a few documents showing that Governors Perry and Abbott knew they were killing as many as 9,000 Texans every year and sending 61,000 into bankruptcy.
4. Wyoming we threatened to sue, and they immediately caved and gave us their response. (They had done nothing to find out how many people they are killing either).
5. We had to sue Governors Brownback and McCrory to finally get a response to our Public Records requests. They both surrendered almost immediately. North Carolina surrendered only two days after we sued them! (Neither state is doing anything to find out how many of their working-poor citizens they are killing and bankrupting).
6. We have contacted members of the national media to get this story before the public.
Public Opinion
In the past year, public opinion has changed on the national scene:
Key: gold line is % of population that does NOT believe the Nation Needs to Make Changes to Give Blacks Equal Rights; brown line is % of population that BELIEVES the Nation Needs to Make Changes to Give Blacks Equal Rights