As we start the new year IUUWAN is working to build relationships with Iowa UU churches and with state and regional social justice organizations, who share our values and purpose. We are pleased to announce that IUUWAN has become a member organization of the Iowa Environmental Council. We will be partnering with the Iowa Environmental Council to address Environmental issues at the Capital. To start the new year, the Iowa Environmental Council is hosting a 45 minute webinar on Wednesday January 5th from 12:00 to 12:45 p.m. entitled 2022 Legislative Preview. To learn more and to register for the webinar please click here.
Richard Allen Hays, a member of Cedar Valley UU and the founder of Iowa Justice Action Network, IJAN, will be advocating for criminal justice reform this legislative session. During the month of January, IJAN will be hosting Tuesdays with IJAN. Our first Zoom session will be on Tuesday, January 11 at 6:30 PM, and the topic will be probation reform. It will be led by Devin Mehaffey, who has been working on this issue with the Reform Alliance. They have a specific bill they are pushing, HF678, which will make important changes in Iowa’s probation system to make it operate more fairly.
On Tuesday, January 18, we will be discussing several proposals to reform the sentence of “life without parole” which we believe has been administered too harshly and unfairly in many cases.