amymichellea's Blog
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Lobby Days!
- Posted on 06.25.09
This is my blog update for Causecast without actually having internet … so it won’t go up until I don’t know when.
It is currently 6:38 AM (eastern time) on a lovely Wednesday morning in Washington, D.C.
Yesterday and Monday were Invisible Children’s event called Lobby Days. The entire goal –which I can only hope everyone who knows anything about Invisible Children knows- was to get this bill to pass in Congress called the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009. It is Senate bill S. 1097(?) and the House bill H.R. 2478.
Monday was spent getting registered, attending meetings about stuff like Effective Activism, the War Room and Unlearning Culture –at least those are what I attended. But Tuesday was the important day.
Tuesday we spent lobbying with our senate and house of representative members to tell them all about this bill and why, since they are representing us, they should cosign the bill.
There were about 256 Californians who flew out or drove out here in order to attend Lobby Days and lobby with our congressmen and women.
The first person we met with was a staff member from Senator Barbara Boxer’s office. The staff member informed us that Senator Boxer had already cosigned the bill, and as such we had a nice chat about the bill and what she has done so far.
Then, we all split off into our respective groups to meet with our district representatives –or people waited patiently to talk with Senator Diane Feinstein’s staff member.
The group that I was with did not get to attend the meeting with Senator Feinstein’s staff member, but instead we got to attend a meeting with the chief of staff for Representative Brain Bilbray from the 50th district in California.
Our group had done much to go through everything we were going to say and the order we would say it in, but what we didn’t understand was that we needed to be aware and ready to simply go with the flow of the conversation. The woman that we met with was extremely kind and asked us questions, which at first threw us off, but we quickly found our groove and got right into it. So if you ever plan to lobby, be prepared for what you want to say, but be prepared to change everything as well.
Our entire group believes that our lobby went relatively well, especially because the staff member had said that she couldn’t see how Representative Bilbray would not cosign the bill.
Now, all that is left to do is sit and watch the congressmen and women sign on their support.
But actually, that’s a lie. It’s simple with what still needs to be done, e-mail and write letters to your representatives, tell them that you would appreciate their support on this bill. Let your voice be heard and help us end the longest running war in Africa.
And, let us realize that this was never How it Ends, but simple How it Begins.
Related causes: Human Rights
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