[nfbmi-talk] Washington Seminar Extended Wrap Up

Tue Feb 17 01:57:32 UTC 2015

I want to take a minute to thank JJ, and all the members of the Michigan delegation (Terri, Georgia, Jeff & Haley) for accepting me so  kindly into their midst.  It was great fun and I was honored to have another chance to represent our Michigan affiliate.  I cannot say enough about these outstanding federationists and the terrific job they do at representing you all in the  halls and  offices of Congress.

With Warmest Regards,

Christine

Boone Christine Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 15, 2015, at 3:01 PM, J.J. Meddaugh via nfbmi-talk <nfbmi-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:

Following is an extended report from Washington Seminar 2015.

The NFB of Michigan was represented well at this year's Washington Seminar, the NFB's largest legislative advocacy event of the year. Our delegation this year included Jeff Crouch, Georgia Kitchen, Terri Wilcox, Christine Boone, Hayley Balogh, and myself. Hayley is a student at the Louisiana Center for the Blind but originally from Michigan, and Christine has lots of Michigan ties. The other four were sponsored by the affiliate.

We were able to meet directly with nearly half of our representatives and senators directly this year including Senator Stabenow, Rep. Upton (Kalamazoo), Rep. Bishop (Lansing), Rep. Debbie Dingell (Ann Arbor), Rep. Kildee (Flint), Rep. benishek (northern Michigan), and Rep. Trott (Livonia/Troy). In the other offices, we met either with their chief of staff or legislative aids who had an education or labor focus.

Legislative Issues

The TIME Act was the first of our issues this year, and is the new name for the former fair wages bill. This bil is H.R. 188 and would phase out the use of special wage certificates which allow employers, most of which are nonprofits, to pay less than the minimum wage. There are over 60 such certificate holders in Michigan, but also examples where an employer has transitioned away from this model, including Midwest Enterprises for the Blind in Kalamazoo and Goodwill of Southwest Michigan. Many representatives were quite interested in the bill, more so than we've seen in the past. Rep. Upton agreed to come back on as a cosponsor and did the very next day. We feel this will help us in getting other reps to sign on, especially some of the newly-elected members. Rep. Conyers signed on to the bill lass session and we expect him to sign on again soon. There are several others who we feel are good shots to sign on and I'll address next steps at the end of this report.

The 2nd issue deals with education and the lack of accessible materials. The TEACH Act would create voluntary guidelines for universities to follow which would help them purchase textbooks, online tools, and other materials which are accessible. We are waiting to introduce a new TEACH Act bill until some further meetings with publishers and university stakeholders are completed. At that point, we'll make a bigger push to get members on board. Several Michigan members expressed interest in seeing the language when it is proposed, and we will follow up.

The Marrakesh Treaty would allow for books in alternative formats to be sent across borders. Currently, this practice is illegal, meaning that books created by libraries for the blind in other countries cannot legally be imported here. This causes lots of duplication and a lack of access. We used an example of a student who had to drop a Spanish minor in their university because the books they needed were available in Spain but not here. Terri often pointed out that every English speaking country in the world created their own braille edition of Harry Potter.

This treaty will need to be ratified by the Senate, and this was the first time that many senators, including Senator Stabenow, had heard of the treaty. Hopefully our education will help in it being passed.

Follow-up

Many of you have asked what we can do as an affiliate after Washington Seminar. At this point, the biggest area of focus is to ask for cosponsors for the TIME Act, HR 188. You can call or Email your representatives, though face-to-face meetings are more effective. If you need help scheduling a meeting or need some ideas on talking points, let me know. You can also use our legislative fact sheets on the NFB website to guide your conversations and share with the members or their staff. To those of you who have scheduled meetings locally in the past, thank you. I have lots of information on our meetings in D.C. as well as key contacts that I'm happy to share with you. Please keep me updated on meetings that you schedule and let us know how they go.

Legislative Seminar

Larry asked me to attend the legislative seminar in Baltimore the previous weekend. This event was run by the NFB Legislative team and an invaluable tool to prepare for the week. The seminar included mock meetings with representatives, brainstorming on future advocacy activities, and lots of tips and tricks shared by the NFB staff and other participants. Since I was already traveling to DC, there was no additional cost for the affiliate for this event.

Financials

We ended up under budget for the event, largely because we had an extra spot in the female room that we shared with another member. This, combined with the use of a certificate and lowered transportation costs, saved us nearly $300 from what was budgeted.

Wrap-up

We once again had a wonderful delegation from Michigan this year, and I thank everyone who was a part of it. If anyone has any questions about Washington Seminar, please don't hesitate to ask. Thank you for the opportunity to serve.

-- 
Best regards,
J.J.

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