Recess Round-up: 9/11/09

Sep 11th, 2009 3:02 PM UTC
By Kim Smith

ONE members from New York to California and everything in between are still going on in-district office visits with their Senators. While the requests for meetings started as part of the August recess, there are many scheduled in September and confirmed meetings are still rolling in as well. Below are just a few meeting updates from the field:

Visit with Senator Schumer’s office in New York City, NY

On Tuesday, Olav Athayde and three other ONE members to meet with Phillip Goldfeder, Director of Intergovernmental Relations for Senator Chuck Schumer, to engage the senator’s staff regarding ONE’s campaign for the world’s poorest people.

At the meeting, they were able to address the issue of foreign aid reform to improve our aid effectiveness in delivering the best results as well as our request that any climate change legislation introduced in the Senate devote 5% of the revenue generated to help the world’s most impoverished regions adapt to climate change.

The group also thanked Senator Schumer for voting in favor the reauthorization of PEPFAR legislation to expand access to prevention, treatment care to combat global HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria and requested that he co-sponsor the Senator Paul Simon ‘Water for the World’ Act of 2009 to expand access to clean water and sanitation for 100 million water-stressed people.

Olav and the group were able to discuss ONE’s growing voice and influence with over 2 million members nationwide and 136,000 ONE members in NY state alone. We were very encouraged by Mr. Goldfeder’s interest in these issues and his desire to help NY ONE members build a stronger relationship with Senator Schumer in the future.

Visit with Senator McCaskill’s office in Springfield MO

Springfield MO, ONE advocates, Beth DeHaven and Eric Mayle, met with Senator Claire McCaskill’s district officer Crystal Quade to discuss the upcoming climate bill. During the meeting ONE members and Ms. Quade exchanged ideas, information, and thoughts on the importance of making certain that the climate bill include a provision to devote 5% of revenue generated to help in adaptation and mitigation on behalf of the world’s poorest people. Ms. Quade promised to convey our sentiments to the Senator and we plan to follow up with her in a few weeks.

Visit with Senator Feinstein’s office in San Francisco, CA

San Fran ONE members Michelle Droz and Lisa McFadin attended a meeting with John Murray, Senator Feinstein’s Field Representative. John had some knowledge of ONE at the start of the meeting and was receptive to learn more about the history of ONE, our goals and objectives. We began the meeting by introducing ourselves, our passions and how they relate to our ONE membership. After the initial introductions, Lisa spoke about the history of ONE and the nationwide ONE membership as well as noting that California with nearly 250,000 has the largest concentration of members in the United States. ONE Field Organizer, Roscoe Mapps stressed our strong relationships and partner organizations that has brought us additional success throughout the years.

Michelle also spoke passionately about the life-threatening effects of climate change in underdeveloped countries. The impact of climate change is a multiplier to other life-threatening issues impacting impoverished countries and ultimately the whole world. John took copious notes, asked great questions, and when he asked us our specific goal of our meeting, we explained that we would like the Senator’s help in securing 5% of the Climate Change Bill for foreign assistance development (currently it’s at 1% in the House Bill). We were encouraged to receive John Murray’s assurance that Senator Feinstein and her staff were interested in our keeping them updated as to ONE’s goals and activities and we look forward to being a conduit of information to Senator Feinstein in San Francisco.

Visit with Senator Kaufman’s office in Milford, DE

On August 28th, Lisa Flowers and Anshu Dixit and several other ONE Delaware members meet with Senator Ted Kaufman’s Kent County/Sussex County coordinator, Kevin Smith. During our meeting we introduced ONE and requested that Senator Kaufman act on the Senate’s climate change bill to allocate 5 percent of any revenue generated by the legislation for the world’s poorest. We also spoke about former Delaware Senator turned Vice President Joe Biden’s past bi-partisan leadership efforts in boost the U.S. international Affairs budget to fight global poverty and preventable disease.

Our visit went very well and Mr. Smith was pleasant and accommodating. He encouraged us to call the senator’s offices at any time to check in with Senator Kaufman as a way to remind him of ONE’s focus. And we will!

-Kim Smith

TAGS: August Recess 2009, From ONE Members, ONE