Domestic Weekly Update April 27, 2010
New and Urgent in This Week’s Update
Latest from Washington, DC
Organizational Updates
Only 6 Days Left for Early Registration for the RESULTS International Conference!Have you signed up for the 2010 RESULTS/RESULTS Educational Fund International Conference yet? We are less than a week away from the early registration deadline on Monday, May 3. After that, the registration fee increases so be sure to reserve your spot today. The RESULTS conference is one of the great highlights of the year at RESULTS. Volunteers from around the world will be there, educating themselves on the issues, making their voices heard on Capitol Hill, and having lots of fun in between. This year’s conference is June 20–22 at the Washington Marriott Hotel at Metro Center in Washington, DC. This is a very special year for RESULTS as it is RESULTS’ 30th Anniversary. Therefore, our conference theme this year is “Celebrating the Past, Shaping the Future — 30 years of RESULTS.” At the conference, we’ll be looking back at all the successes we accomplished over the years and looking forward to the ways we can create a world free of hunger and poverty. You won’t want to miss out. Highlights of this year’s conference include:
TAKE ACTION: Register for the RESULTS International Conference TODAY! To register for the 2010 conference, go to our International Conference page. We have all kinds of resources available to you, including conference and hotel registration forms, conference schedule, a helpful checklist for attendees, applications for scholarship assistance, our Campus for Change program and for those wanting to volunteer at the conference, and a forum for finding roommates to lower expenses. REGISTER TODAY — this will be the event of the summer! After Registering for the RESULTS Conference, Don’t Forget to Your RESULTS Group onto CHN’s Tax Credit LetterAs mentioned last week, the Coalition on Human Needs is circulating a sign-on letter for groups around the country in support of extending the expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit made in last year’s economic recovery bill. These provisions will expire at the end of this year, causing a financial blow to 7 million low-income people, many of them children. To ensure that this does not happen, we need a strong show of support for extending these benefits. By having local RESULTS groups and other groups in your community sign onto this letter, members of Congress will see that constituents from their districts want Congress to protect low-income families. TAKE ACTION: Sign your local RESULTS group onto the Coalition on Human Needs letter urging Congress to preserve and build upon low income tax credits for working families and students. Read the letter and then have someone in your RESULTS group sign on in support. For example, you can sign on as “RESULTS Broward County” or “RESULTS Twin Cities.” Once your group has signed on, send it to other groups or organizations in your area and urge them to sign on as well. The deadline to sign on is this Friday, April 30th. After that, it will be sent to every representative and senator in Congress. Follow Up Your Letters with Calls to House and Senate Tax Aides (April Action)If you have not taken the April Action urging Congress to preserve improvements to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC), please make sure to do so this week. It is important that members of the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees hear from their colleagues about the importance of these expanded credits. In addition, if you have taken the April Action, we thank you for doing so. But don’t stop there. Once you’ve submitted your letters, follow up with phone calls to the House and Senate tax aides for your members of Congress. Have a conversation with them about the importance of these credits and ask what their bosses intend to do to support them in tax legislation this year. These conversations will also lay the groundwork for your June meetings with these aides in Washington, DC at the RESULTS International Conference. For additional talking points on these issues, please see our Weekly Update Archive and review the April 2010 updates. You can also listen to a recording of our April 2010 national conference call for information on these credits. TAKE ACTION: Take the April Action. Write your representatives and senators and urge them to talk to House and Senate leaders to make the ARRA expansions of EITC and CTC permanent so that low-income Americans don’t lose their benefits at the end of this year. After sending in your letters, follow up with the tax aides to reiterate the importance of these credits and to find out where you members of Congress stand on the issue. Remember, you can find out the names of these aides on our Elected Officials page of the RESULTS website. Just pull up each member of Congress and click on the “Staff” tab above his/her picture. Also see our new laser talk on low-income tax credits. Urge Your Representatives to Sign onto McGovern/Emerson Child Nutrition LetterThank you to all of you who contacted your representatives last week about the McGovern/Emerson Child Nutrition “Dear Colleague” letter (pdf). The letter urges House leaders to provide the full funding proposed by the president. In his 2011 budget, President Obama requested $10 billion over ten years for child nutrition programs. The Senate Agriculture Committee recently passed its version of Child Nutrition Reauthorization that included $4.5 billion over ten years. The House Education and Labor Committee is expected to draft its proposal in the coming weeks. As of yesterday, 139 House members had signed on; the goal is 218 (a majority in the House). To reach this goal, organizers have extended the deadline to sign on to this Friday, April 30. See who has signed onto the letter as of April 23. TAKE ACTION: If you have not called your representative’s office, join our friends at the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) and ask him/her to sign on the letter. This letter is being circulated by Representatives Jim McGovern (D-MA-3) and Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO-8), urging Speaker Nancy Pelosi to help identify funding sources for the $1 billion per year funding increase that President Obama has proposed for Child Nutrition Reauthorization. When calling, ask for the aide who works on childhood nutrition programs and say:
Quick NewsWall Street Reform Stalls in the Senate. Last night, the Senate attempted to move forward on debate over Wall Street reform. The bill, which includes consumer protections that would benefit low-income Americans. For example, payday lenders target low-income communities for their services including short term loans that sometimes come interest rates as high as 700 percent. The bill would authorize oversight, rule-making, and enforcement authority over these and other consumer products. The cloture vote on S.3217 only garnered 57 of the 60 votes needed to move forward. All Republicans plus Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) voted NO (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid switched his vote from YES to NO in order to allow him to bring the bill up again). Sen. Reid plans to bring up the bill again this week while Senate negotiators work to get three more votes for cloture. AnnouncementsCultivate New Donors for RESULTS’s Domestic Work. To help secure and expand our existing capacity for our U.S poverty work, we are looking to strengthen and grow our donor base in support our work to hunger and poverty in the U.S. We know that many of you have developed meaningful relationships with people in your communities and have cultivated many admirers for your work with RESULTS. If they have not already, perhaps these people would be interested in investing in our work and seeing the good their financial gifts can create. If you know of potential donors in your area, or would like to work in collaboration with staff to identify donors in your community, please contact Meredith Dodson (dodson@results.org) or Jos Linn (jlinn@results.org). RESULTS/REF Board Nominations Now Open. The term of one of RESULTS/RESULTS Educational Fund Grassroots Board Members expires in September, 2010. Therefore, we are taking nominations for a Grassroots Board Member (3 year term). Active RESULTS volunteers can nominate other active volunteers for this position. Nominees who accept being placed on the ballot will be asked to furnish a brief biography. Balloting will be held beginning in June at the International Conference and continue until August 1. Please forward names and phone numbers of any nominees to Carly Hicks at cfhicks@results.org by May 17. Please Submit Your Group Planning Forms. Please complete your Group Planning Form and e-mail, mail or fax a copy to Meredith Dodson at the RESULTS DC office. Upcoming Events(Click to see a complete calendar) April 21 and May 5: RESULTS/Friends of Marianne Williamson training calls, 10:00 pm ET, (712) 432-3100, passcode 761262. These calls are designed to introduce RESULTS to attendees of last month’s Sister Giant Conference in Los Angeles and other friends of RESULTS Board member Marianne Williamson. Note that the April 7 call was postponed due to many people being in Kenya for the Microcredit Summit (call dates also include March 10, March 24; you can listen to recordings of these calls on our For New Activists page). To attend the call, RSVP to Meredith Dodson. April 25: Microcredit Summit call with Marianne Williamson. 9:00 pm ET (712) 432-3100, passcode 761262. April–May: New Activist Orientation. 9:00 pm ET. Four sessions: April 5, April 19, May 3, May 17. Call (712) 432-3100, passcode 761262. This is for people new to RESULTS as an introduction to our organization and our work. Contact Lisa Marchal to sign up and for more information. April 27: Puget Sound fundraising event, 7:00 pm PT. Contact Melessa Rogers for details; (206) 618-1742, melessarogers@yahoo.com. May 23: Kitsap, WA, group fundraising luncheon, 1:00 pm PT. Contact Lene Hajek for details; (235) 857-5234, lnybyh@yahoo.com. June 20–22: RESULTS/RESULTS Educational Fund International Conference, Washington Marriott Hotel, Washington, DC. Register online TODAY! RESULTS Contact InformationMain Office: (p) (202) 783-7100, (f) (202) 783-2818, 750 First Street NE, Suite 1040, Washington DC 20002. Domestic Legislative and Grassroots Support Staff: Meredith Dodson, (202) 783-7100, x.116 (dodson@results.org); Jos Linn, (515) 288-3622 (jlinn@results.org). The RESULTS Domestic Update is sent out every Tuesday over e-mail to RESULTS volunteers and allies all over the country. The purpose of these updates is to inform and activate RESULTS activists to take action on our domestic campaigns. |