Florida PIRG recently joined the fight to extend health insurance to millions of American children whose families can’t afford it.

Late in 2007, Congress twice passed bills that would expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) only to see both bills vetoed by President Bush.

SCHIP proponents fell 20 votes short of what was needed to override the president’s vetoes, largely due to strong opposition by tobacco companies.

“This idea had strong bipartisan support. If President Bush won’t stand up for kids, we’ll need to help the uninsured through another outlet,” said Florida PIRG’s Brad Ashwell.

On March 11, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to set up an independent office to police ethical scandals under a plan recommended by a special task force and endorsed by Florida PIRG. We applauded Reps. Castor, Meek, Mahoney, Wexler, Wasserman-Schultz, Klein and Hastings for fulfilling a promise to clean up Congress.

In January of 2007, the House approved strong Florida PIRG-backed rules designed to curb the influence of lobbyists over members of Congress.

The rules banned lobbyist-paid gifts and travel, and required lobbyists to disclose fundraising for candidates. The House put off a decision on how to enforce the rules for most of 2007, setting up a task force to examine the options. U.S. PIRG’s Gary Kalman urged Rep. Michael Capuano (Mass.), the head of the task force, to recommend a truly independent office, one that would end the current practice of “self-policing” that let lobbyist Jack Abramoff shower members of Congress with favors for years before the Justice Department brought him down.

We pushed to model the new Office of Congressional Ethics on the 24 state ethics commissions that currently exist.  Our national federation’s report profiling the state commissions was cited in congressional testimony.

The “digital transition” is coming. Will your TV make the switch? In February 2009, television broadcasting signals will switch from analog to all digital signals.

Our expert on the issue, Amina Fazlullah, found that Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target, among other electronics retailers, are using the transition to their advantage, convincing customers to buy unnecessary equipment, or neglecting to inform would-be analog buyers about the transition.

While a rebate program has been established to help consumers purchase analog to digital converters, the information on the program is hard to find and not widespread. Most of the consumers who will be affected are rural, elderly or low-income. Estimates put the number of households in danger of being cut off from television with the digital transition between 13 million and 21 million. Fazlullah testified before U.S. House and Senate committees on the issue.