[NFBWATLK] 2017 NFB Washington Seminar and legislative agenda

[Marci Carpenter]

Hello Everyone,

It is time once again for us to begin working on the NFB’s legislative agenda. Some of us will be Traveling to Washington DC for the  2017 Washington Seminar later this month and I am asking everyone in the NFB of Washington and our allies to learn about our legislative priorities for 2017 and to help us gain support for them in Congress this year.

Below is a document outlining the issues we will be discussing with Congressional Representatives and their staff. They include the Accessible Instructional Materials in Higher Education (AIM HE) Act, an amendment to the IRS code called the Access Technology Affordability Act which would provide for a refundable tax credit for the purchase of qualifying access technology, a one-time appropriation to the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped for the purchase and distribution of refreshable braille devices and the Marrakesh Treaty. The elimination of sub minimum wages for all workers with disabilities is still a high priority for the NFB but these are the issues we will focus on during our appointments in a few weeks. Our Space Available language was included in both the House and Senate versions of the Defense Reauthorization Act and final language is being worked on for that. The document at the end of this email briefly outlines our legislative priorities. Individual fact sheets on each issue can be found at https://nfb.org/washington-seminar <https://nfb.org/washington-seminar>. 

There will be five Federationists from Washington going to the other Washington this year. Matt Hines from Vancouver and Danielle Fernandez from Tacoma will be attending for the first time. Buna Dahal from Clark County, a veteran of may Washington Seminars, will be working in the headquarters room at the hotel and also going to several appointments with us. Jamal Mazrui from Seattle, who is new to our state but has also been on many of these trips in the past, will also be attending along with myself.

I have sent out appointment requests to all of our Congressional delegation. Once our appointments are set we will need the assistance of everyone here in the state to help promote our issues with your individual Representative and our two Senators. We will post contact information for each office, as well as the dates and times of our meetings with them, on this list and through our social media. We need each of you to contact your Representative and the Senators by phone/Twitter/Facebook on the day we meet with them to urge them to support our issues. Don’t know who your Representative is? Go to http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ <http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/>. 

Thanks for all that you do to help blind Washingtonians live the lives we want.

Marci Carpenter, NFBW President