|
|
Downsizer-Dispatch: Why bother sending Congress a message
D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h
|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|
Dear DC Downsizers,
Your efforts are making a difference.
I'm on the road this weekend, promoting the Downsize
DC Foundation and DownsizeDC.org, but here's what
we've accomplished as of Friday (and I'm going to
save the best news for last).
* Our previous best month for sending messages to
Congress was March, when DC Downsizers sent 13,065
petitions. But in May, you've helped us shatter that
record. DC Downsizers sent 15,864 letters to
Congress.
* And since July 15, 2004, DC Downsizers have sent a
total of 69,072 of these messages on a variety of
issues from campaign finance reform to privacy issues
to budget matters.
* Our previous best months for registering new DC
Downsizers were March and October -- 733 and 830 new
registrations, respectively. By telling your family
and friends about our campaigns you've helped us
shatter that record. As of the 20th we've registered
1,068 new supporters in May!
* In fact, since July 15, 2004, a total of 5,126
people have registered and sent messages to Congress.
* Our email list, the Downsizer-Dispatch, has also
experienced tremendous growth. The Friday morning
report stated that we had 18,935 subscribers on this
list - up from 11,642 last July 15th.
But is all this for naught? Someone wrote me this
week and said, "Since the Senate voted 100 to 0 for
the emergency budget bill that included the Real ID
Act, what's the point? Why should I bother sending
messages to Congress?"
I'll show you below that we are already helping to
change things. But our ultimate ability to profoundly
influence the outcome of votes will depend on having
hundreds of thousands of DC Downsizers lobbying
Congress. We need to become so big we can't be
ignored.
We're already growing rapidly, and I believe the best
is yet to come, especially with the launch of the
"Read the Bills" campaign. It may seem trite, but the
sayings are true that, "Every journey of a thousand
miles begins with a single step," and "The only way
to eat an elephant is one bite at a time."
That's why we send Downsizer-Dispatch messages a few
times per week, instead of once a week or every other
week. Government is growing daily and rapidly, and if
we want small, limited government in our lifetime -
if we want to Downsize DC - we must be as aggressive
as possible.
The good news is that you are ALREADY having an
impact.
On our home page, we have campaigns for...
* Ron Paul's bill, HR 181, to stop mandatory
mental-health screening, and the resulting mandatory
medication of children in government schools. We call
this campaign "No Child Left Undrugged." DC
Downsizers have sent 4,872 messages to Congress on
this bill. On February 7 we reported to the
Downsizer-Dispatch list that this bill had 12 co-
sponsors in the House. Now, in no small part thanks
to you, there are 35 of them!
* Roscoe Bartlett's bill, The First Amendment
Restoration Act (HR 689) repeals regulations on
citizens running ads mentioning candidates by name
during the final 30 days of a primary campaign, and
the final sixty days of a general election campaign.
It was introduced with zero co-sponsors. But with
the aid of 3,117 Downsizer messages we've gone from zero
to 52 House co-sponsors.
* Jeb Hensarling's Free the Internet bill, which we
reported just a few weeks ago as having four House
co-sponsors and two Senators, now has seven in the
House and two in the Senate.
Your efforts do count. Please, don't let up. If you
haven't sent a message on one of these campaigns, you
can go to www.DownsizeDC.org right now, and find all
three of them below the banner for our Read the Bills
campaign. Click on the links for these campaigns, and
let your voice be heard.
Speaking of Read the Bills, as I told you yesterday,
online contributions for the Submission Committee end
Monday. That means, if you want your name listed for
history, you need to make your contribution by Monday
midnight. Why?
Because Monday morning, we're submitting the Read the
Bills Act to the 535 Congressional offices. Hours
later, we'll launch the online lobbying campaign.
We'll continue to accept snail-mail donations in
response to the current newsletter we have in
mailboxes, but online contributions that qualify for
listing your name on the Submission Committee end
Monday at midnight.
If you've already given, you can increase your rank,
possibly even capturing the John Hancock line - the
top space on the list - because we list donors in
order by the size of their contributions. Monthly
pledgers are counted for the annual value of their
pledge (we multiply the monthly amount by 12).
http://www.downsizedc.org/contribute.shtml
Please join the Submission Committee right now.
Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|
D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h
is the official email list of
http://www.DownsizeDC.org.
CONTRIBUTE to this project at
http://www.downsizedc.org/contribute.shtml
http://www.DownsizeDC.org is sponsored by
DownsizeDC.org, Inc. -- a non-profit
educational organization promoting the ideas of
individual liberty, personal responsibility,
free markets, and small government.
VISIT the Foundation's web site at
http://www.DownsizeDC.org
UNSUBSCRIBE from this list by sending a text only (no HTML) email to
distribution-request@DownsizeDC.org with the word
unsubscribe
on the first line of the body of the message.
Please leave the rest of the message blank.
SUBSCRIBE to this list by sending a text only (no HTML)
email to distribution-request@DownsizeDC.org with the word
subscribe
on the first line of the body of the message.
Please leave the rest of the message blank.
CHANGE your subscription address by subscribing your
new address and unsubscribing your old address.
You are encouraged to forward this message to
friends and business associates, and permission is
hereby granted to reproduce any items herein as
long as attribution is provided for articles and
the subscription instructions above are included.
---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
|
