Reposted from our coalition’s website, We Warned Them. We are asking for your help. In Missouri, our friends from the TTI survivor community have drawn the line: Agape Boarding School has gone too far. Agape, a residential troubled teen program located in Cedar County, Missouri, is under investigation for their abuse and for using unsafe,…
We are happy to announce that NYRA is now fiscally sponsoring Breaking Code Silence, a movement organized by a network of survivors and activists to raise awareness of the problems in the “Troubled Teen” Industry, to aide them as they organize their nonprofit. Youth can be kidnapped and held without their consent in these programs…
NYRA is asking Congress to introduce legislation to reform the “Troubled Teen” Industry. Youth can be kidnapped and held without their consent in these camps for “behavior modification”, often suffering severe abuse. Last time we advocated for legislation to regulate the Troubled Teen Industry it passed the House but not the Senate, but the stakes…
NYRA has been forming a coalition of advocacy groups together to free the youth held in abusive behavior modification facilities during COVID-19, and we have just had another eight organizations sign onto our open letter including the International Indigenous Youth Council and the San Francisco Youth Council for Education Policy! The active COVID-19 threat puts…
Next month brings with it another campaign for president, and that means it is time for NYRA to once again look into the issue of campaign contributions from young people. This is an issue NYRA has followed since 2002 when the Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance bill was introduced that ultimately became the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act…
On Tuesday, March 5, the House of Representatives voted on a bill introduced by Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) to lower the federal voting age to 16. In this historic vote, 126 representatives voted in favor of the bill, including a majority of House Democrats and Texas Republican Michael Burgess. Pressley’s bill, House Amendment 76 to…
Last November, I had the pleasure of meeting with Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) and her Judicial Counsel in November in her Washington office. Meng introduced a bill to lower the voting age last summer, so I set up a meeting to discuss how we could work together to move the bill forward. I talked about…
Thanks to the efforts of the newly formed Fairfax County NYRA chapter, the Fairfax County Democratic Party and grassroots organizations Virginia Democracy Forward and Virginia Civic Engagement Table have endorsed lowering the state voting age to 16. “16-and-17-year-olds are not allowed to vote even though many of them are politically active and knowledgeable”, says Virginia…
Last week, U.S. Representative Grace Meng (D-NY) introduced a resolution proposing an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would lower the voting age to sixteen throughout the country. This resolution (H.J.Res.138) would replace the Twenty-sixth Amendment, which prevents states from having a voting age higher than 18, with the following language: “The right of citizens…
On Wednesday, NYRA members attended a public hearing before the Washington, D.C. City Council to support the Youth Vote Amendment Act of 2018. If passed, this act would lower the D.C. voting age to 16 for both local and federal elections: something unprecedented in U.S. history. A total of 73 public witnesses testified in favor…
