[il-talk] NFB Washington Seminar 2014

[Denise Avant]

Hello all,
Yes, Glenn, you are right. Rep. Schakowsky did make an oral commitment to the TEACH act. I apologize for the oversight. And Rose Sloan will be following up. But it will be up to all of us to followup until Rep. Schakowsky actually signs on as a co-sponsor.
By the way, we do have co-sponsors on HR831 the Fair Wages Bill. Rep. Quigley and Rep. Rush were co-sponsors before we left for Washington. Now it is time to take advantage of the bounce out of the seminar, and get more co-sponsors on HR831, and the newer bills as well. I should say that S556, the Air Carrier Accessibility Technology Act is a senate bill. So, we will need to get a House bill, and of course, we want to get as many people from our congressional delegation to sign on as co-sponsors.

Denise Avant
dravant at ameritech.net

P.S.  Please give to the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois Annual
Appeal by sending your tax deductible donation to NFBI c/o Glenn Moore III,
Treasurer P.O. Box 1065 Elgin, IL 60121.

On Jan 31, 2014, at 2:12 AM, Glenn <glennmooreiii at yahoo.com> wrote:

> It was a spectacular experience and opportunity to participate in our government, of, for and by the people--that's us. By the way, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky said in our meeting "I'm on it" about TEACH, so I think its safe to anticipate her cosponsoring this bill that will provide class material publishers and higher ed institutions guidelines for how to fulfil their role in adhering to the ADA.
> Glenn III
> 
> denise avant <dravant at ameritech.net> wrote:
> 
>> Hello federation family,
>> another Washington seminar has come to a close.it was a privilege to travel with 8 other federationist from Illinois to talk to our legislators about the issues concerning blind people. The work is not done. for in the coming weeks, we will all be asked to follow up  with our house members and two senators by e-mailing calling, and visiting them to discuss these issues.
>> the three issues are: (1) HR 831 Fair Wages For Workers With Disabilities, design to phase out Section 14c of the Fair Labor Standards Act, allowing for the payment of subminimum wages to disabled workers, (2)  HR 3505 Technology Education And Accessibility in College and Higher Education, designed to provide  guidelines to colleges and universities on how to make all their course materials to blind students and (3) S556, Air Carrier Accessibility Technology Act, which is designed among other things to make accessible mobile apps and the touch screen on aircraft so that you can buy things when flying. As far as  I know, none of the legislators committed to voting one way or the other on these bills. However, with varying levels of enthusiasm, the staffers promised to communicate to our representatives the information we imparted to them. We promised that we would follow  up when we came back home. Nine of us went to Washington seminar, but many more of us can actively press these issues to our legislators, and gain their support. We can enlist our friends and family to do the same.  To read the fact sheets on these issues, you can go to Newsline or the NFB.ORG website.
>> 
>> p.S.
>> We should all be so proud of Rose Sloan. She knows her job, and does it with enthusiasm. And because of her, some of us got our picture taken with Rep. Jan. Schakowsky.
>> Rep. John Shimkus was going to meet with us personally, but could not because of a house vote. However, he took the time to stop and shake hands on the way to the House.
>> 
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> _______________________________________________
>> il-talk mailing list
>> il-talk at nfbnet.org
>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/il-talk_nfbnet.org
>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for il-talk:
>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/il-talk_nfbnet.org/glennmooreiii%40yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> il-talk mailing list
> il-talk at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/il-talk_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for il-talk:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/il-talk_nfbnet.org/dravant%40ameritech.net