Dear List Members,
From my angle, calling on UDALL was surprisingly easy. As a matter of fact, I
was so inspired by it that I called all kinds of folks to ask them todo the
same. We want the members of the Appropriations Committee to know that we
have broad based support, you see. I simply called (I'm from Michigan) both
Congressman Sander Levin's local office and his DC office and explained to
the screeners who answered the phones that I understood that Congressman Levin
had received a "Dear Colleague" letter from Congressman Fred Upton in support
of fully appropriating for FY 99 the $100,000,000 that was authorized for
Parkinson Research and Education in FY 98 and hoped he would contact Erin
Stump, Congressman Upton's Legislative Assistant, at 225-3761 to add his name
to the letter as I knew how very supportive he had been in stepping out to be
a co-sponsor of the original bill. It was as simple as that. She then asked
for my name and address and re-verified that I was in support of appropriating
the money and that I wanted Congressman Levin to sign the Upton letter and
that was it. While very very nice, it was obvious that the screener would
relay the message but had no idea what I was talking about. This could
happen to you, too, but rather than vent on the person answering the phone out
of understandable frustration, remember, as I did, that we're counting on that
person to deliver a message and need all the friends we can get.
If I had contacted Bill Turenne from the NPD (1-888-331-4673) I would have
asked to speak to Congressman Levin's "L. A . " in charge of health issues and
if that person was not available I would have asked to be put through to that
person's voice mail, if the person knew who it was, that is. I may do this
yet.
The way I explained the whole thing to friends was that there had been a bill
in the House called the Morris Udall Bill for Parkinson's Research and
Education. The bill had 254 co-sponsors including Michigan's Sander Levin,
but never went to a vote in the House. Instead it became a part of another
bill, an appropriations bill, which became a law which would authorize or
allow the spending of $100,000,000 for Parkinson Research and Education. To
date, the $100,000,000, while authorized, has not yet been appropriated. The
bill was passed in FY98 but is actually for FY99. I then explained how
supportive Congressman Levin had been and that I wanted them to mention that
they knew he had been a co-sponsor of the original bill and how grateful to
him they were for that. Asked that they ask that he sign the Upton 'Dear
Colleague" letter supporting fully appropriating all the money authorized,
that he could help so much now in that way. If any of my info is incorrect,
please let me know.
Call your Congressman today! You'll feel better that you did.
Sincerely,
Barb Brock
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