[il-talk] NFB Washington Seminar 2014

[Robert Gardner]

Another NFBI team to Washington Seminar met Rep. Rodney Daivis, who insisted 
on having his picture taken with the group.  Yet another team met personally 
with Rep. Randy Hultgren, and another team with Rep. Cheri Bustos.  In my 
experience, I don't remember another Washington Seminar when we had the 
opportunity to meet so many Congressmen/Congresswomen in person.


-----Original Message----- 
From: denise avant
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2014 2:03 PM
To: NFB of Illinois Nfb-i conference call Number ; Illinois Association of 
Blind Students List
Subject: [il-talk] NFB Washington Seminar 2014

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
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