Oregon is poised to become the second state in the nation to officially support the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, but we need your help to get the bill over the finish line. The final vote on this in the Oregon House is coming up today, Monday June 24th, so please call now!
Act Now: Contact your Oregon State Representative today and urge them to vote yes on Senate Joint Memorial 5 to support the Nuclear Ban Treaty and urge Congress to lead a global effort to prevent nuclear war.
Senate Joint Memorial 5 (SJM 5) has passed the Oregon Senate and the House Rules Committee, and next up is a vote on the House floor. The bill has the support of 31 organizations around the state and has garnered moving testimony, including from a Japanese hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor), a Hanford downwinder, an atomic veteran, the Oregon Marshallese Community, a city councilor, and many more. You can read the bill and view testimony here.
Photo above: Senate Joint Memorial 5 supporters gather at the Capitol after testifying at the Senate Rules Committee in April.
SJM 5 acknowledges that Oregon taxpayers are spending around $188 million annually on nuclear weapons, money that could be better spent on education, health care, infrastructure, and the environment. It calls out the racial injustice and harms to human health that nuclear weapons have already caused from the mining of uranium on native lands to the testing of weapons on the Marshall Islands to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It asserts that treaties and international agreements that are now being abandoned by the US, such as the INF Treaty and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Iran Nuclear Deal), actually keep Oregonians safe.
The bill supports federal legislation that would stop the President’s sole unchecked power to launch nuclear weapons, end nuclear first-strike, take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert, stop wasteful spending on a new nuclear arms race, and lead negotiations with other nuclear-armed states to eliminate nuclear weapons. The memorial also calls on the US government to join the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which is supported by a majority of the world’s nations.
Now we are on to the House floor for a final vote. Call your Oregon State Representative in Salem today and let them know you want them to vote yes on SJM 5 when it comes to the House floor.
Sample script: Hi this is (your name) and I am a constituent of Representative ___________ from (your town). I am calling to urge the Representative to vote yes on Senate Joint Memorial 5 when it comes to the House floor today. I would like to see Oregon on record supporting the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and to urge Congress to lead a global effort to prevent nuclear war. This is important to me because ____________. Can I count on the Representative to vote yes on this memorial?
Thank you for taking action for a nuclear-free future!