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Cochran, Snowe and Specter Fighting for PEPFAR

May 27th, 2008 at 3:34 pm | posted by Aaron.Banks

Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) are the latest singers of the Lugar-Sununu letter to the Senate Majority and Minority leaders. That letter asks Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell to do everything in their power to get PEPFAR, America’s primary vehicle for fighting HIV/AIDS in the developing world to the Senate floor for a vote. These two additional voices show those who blocking action on PEPFAR that there is strong bipartisan support for continuing America’s moral leadership against killers like AIDS, TB and malaria.

But there’s still more to do. If you live in Texas, Idaho, Kansas, Utah, Mississippi, Wyoming, Iowa, Alaska, Colorado, Arizona, South Dakota, Tennessee, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Nevada or Missouri, we need you to write to your senator or senators and ask them to sign the Lugar-Sununu letter and get PEPFAR going: http://www.one.org/pepfarletter

If you’re not in one of those states, you can still ask your senators to co-sponsor PEPFAR here: http://www.one.org/pepfarsenate/

Lugar-Sununu Letter Signers:
Dick Lugar (R-IN)
John Sununu (R-NH)
Elizabeth Dole (R-NC)
Gordon Smith (R-OR)
Bob Corker (R-TN)
Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
Susan Collins (R-ME)
Mel Martinez (R-FL)
Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Norm Coleman (R-MN)
John Warner (R-VA)
Thad Cochran (R-MS)
Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
Arlen Specter (R-PA)

-Aaron Banks, ONE.org

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 at 3:34 pm and is filed under PEPFAR2008, PEPFAR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “Cochran, Snowe and Specter Fighting for PEPFAR”

  1. Debbie K Says:
    May 27th, 2008 at 5:05 pm

    Thanks Aaron for the update on the status of the Lugar-Sununu sign-on letter. It is very much appreciated.

    ONE question: where is Obama or Clinton or McCain? Aren’t they all “on the record” as supporting the ONE Campaign? Haven’t I seen our membership in this Blog standing next to these three politicos with whitebands on?

    If so, then - what gives? Where are you Hillary and Barack and John?

    Their silence on PEPFAR so far is what de-motivates me from partisan politics because ALL politicians will use you for a promo shot when they think they can get votes from you and then forget about you when they think that they don’t need you anymore!

    Suffice to say, in-person office visits are being arranged down here in Texas on behalf of PEPFAR. I encourage all of my fellow ONE supporters in Idaho, Kansas, Utah, Mississippi, Wyoming, Iowa, Alaska, Colorado, Arizona, South Dakota, Tennessee, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Nevada and Missouri to do the same.

    I, for ONE, am NOT going to sit back and watch PEPFAR fail to be re-authorized. I am laying my body in front of the trains taking Africans to their early graves from AIDS & extreme poverty. I ask you to JOIN US as we FIGHT FOR PEPFAR !

    ONE HEART, ONE HOPE, ONE VOICE, ONE LOVE - debbie :)
    www.mpwn-uganda.org
  2. Aaron.Banks Says:
    May 27th, 2008 at 5:36 pm

    Hi Debbie,

    We’re actually only targeting a handful of states with this action, and NY and IL are not among them, so we’re not asking Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama to sign the Sununu-Lugar letter. We are asking John McCain to sign the Sununu-Lugar letter, and we’ll be delivering letters from ONE members to him later this week. So let’s at least wait until he’s heard from us before we give up on someone who has been such a public supporter of ONE, and a strong past supporter of PEPFAR.

    And we’re still asking all senators, including Senators Clinton and Obama, to sign on as co-sponsors for PEPFAR reauthorization.

    Thanks,
    Aaron
  3. Debbie K Says:
    May 27th, 2008 at 5:42 pm

    Thanks Aaron for your input in this thread but I must politely clarify ONE point - simply because ONE is not targeting Sens. Obama & Clinton for this action does that mean that they can’t sign on to the letter as a matter of principle?

    I think any Senator that feels so inclined to can sign on to this letter - if they wanted to.

    If all these Senators have already gone “on the record” as supporting ONE and our movement to end AIDS and extreme poverty, then NONE of them should have to be coaxed to support the sign on letter and PEPFAR re-authorization.

    They would willingly support these efforts without our continued actions as a matter of principle - correct?

    Their silence on these matters so far does NOT impress me - and I hope that it does not impress others in our movement.

    I will always STAND AS ONE with everything that we do on a national level. But I have been around politics long enough to know when things don’t smell right.

    I AM….ALWAYS FOREVER, ONE - debbie :)
  4. Scott Simpson Says:
    May 28th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

    Can we get an update on who has co-sponsored PEPFAR? Last update seems to be 5/16?

    Thanks….
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