[Nfbmo] Washington Seminar surprise

[DanFlasar at aol.com]

Hi folks,
   This is a quick note from DC to tell y'all that this  years Washington 
Seminar has now concluded with the NFB of Missouri bringing in  a big boost 
to the chances of passage of one of our  initiatives.    We were all 
disappointed initially to learn that  the new House rules specify that the House 
will be in session 3 out of every 4  weeks, the other week to be spent in the 
home district.  A very good thing  for greater access to our Congressfolk but 
in this case, they were home and we  were in DC to meet with them.  We met 
with the staff of all of our 9  representatives and two Senators and 
presented their legislative aides with our  information packets along with time to 
present our 2011 agenda and get their  thoughts on which bills they would or 
would not support as well as ideas on how  best to move our goals through 
the process.
    We had the good luck to meet with our  newly-elected Senator, Roy Blunt 
who sat down with our team f - to provide  them with  the details of our 
proposed  legislation.   We felt that the Senator was favorably disposed to 
our  Technology Bill of Rights but had no sense of where he might be on any of 
the  other initiatives.   Imagine our surprise when at the 6 pm  
get-together yesterday
 we learned that the NFB Governmental Affairs  leadership had just 
receivedan email from Sen.Blunt's legislative aide,  Jack Smedile, informing us that 
Sen. Blunt wants to be the Republican prime  spnonsorof the Americans with 
Disabilities Business Opportunity Act!    Since  the NFB prefers to have 
bipartisan prime spnonsors, it's great that  our junior senator has taken the 
lead so early.   Sen Blunt will be  reviewing the language of the bill once 
it is available to put his final okay on  the deal but the fact that he 
isphilosophically favorable to the intent and  spirit of our proposed legislation 
is a very good development.   
   A fuller report will come later but we wanted our  fellow Missourians  
to know about this exciting news.
 
Sincerely,
 
Dan Flasar
Co-ordinator, Washington Seminar
Missouri affiliate
National Federaton ofo the Blind of Missouri
_danflasar at aol.com_ (mailto:danflasar at aol.com)