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February 2008
The Friends Committee on National Le-gislation is the
oldest registered peace lobby organization of Capitol Hill, having been
in operation for 64 years. It is governed by the General Committee of
representatives from 26 yearly meetings from across the country. These
yearly meetings account for a range but not the whole of the Quaker
religious spectrum -- FUM, FGC, and Conservative YMs. The
organization’s policy and legislative priorities and budget for
the coming year are set by this General Committee at its annual meeting
each November. Ross Capon and Marion Ballard of our meeting currently
are a members of the General Committee. Ross was named as a
representative from BYM, and Ma-rion by the FCNL Nominating Committee
as an at-large member. Marion is clerk of the Finance Committee, and
Ross is a member of that com-mittee.
Every two years, in advance of the next
Congress, FCNL seeks input from monthly meet-ings on what its
legislative priorities should be. This fall we will be electing members
of the 111th Congress which will take office next January. This spring
BFM and monthly meet-ings elsewhere will receive materials asking where
we think FCNL should focus in its work. Over the past number of years,
the P&SJ Committee has taken the lead in organizing the discussion
of the meeting’s response -- normally inviting members to attend
a meeting of committee where the priorities are discussed and then
forwarding BFM’s recommendations to FCNL following that
discussion.
FCNL organizes its lobbying work in four broad areas that reflect the four elements of its mission statement:
1) We seek a world free of war and the threat of
war; 2) We seek a society with equity and justice for all; 3) We seek a
community where every person’s potential is fulfilled; 4) We seek
an earth restored.
FCNL has a relatively small staff of 40 including
interns and part-time field representa-tives, so it is not possible for
all of these four elements to get equal treatment in terms of staff
time and resources. In seeking a world free of war and the threat of
war, for the last six years a lot of time and energy has gone into
ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This part of the mission
statement also covers FCNL’s nuclear disarma-ment work where it
is among the leaders of the national disarmament community.
The work on preserving civil liberties in the
post-9/11 era (lobbying against warrantless wiretaps and anti-torture
legislation) falls under seeking equity and justice for all. Also in
this area is FCNL’s work in supporting cultural integrity and
tribal sovereignty of Native Americans.
Seeking a community were every person's potential
may be fulfilled expresses itself in FCNL’s work on trying to
reduce military spend-ing and redirecting that money into domestic
programs that reduce poverty and address human and community needs.
Much of this work is done in coordination with other groups which focus
more directly on these issues.
FCNL has used its new green building in a variety of
ways as an actual tangible example of how it is seeking an earth
restored. Last July, it held a celebration for finally obtaining the
documents showing that the building was LEED certified by the U.S.
Green Building Council. Sixteen members of Congress from both parties
attended and toured the building, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
who stated her commitment to reducing the carbon footprint of
congressional buildings.
In December, FCNL tallied up a number of areas where
it saw the work of its small staff and the lobbying by its
supporters around the country as having had an impact on legislation
passed in 2007.
No New Nuclear Bomb Plant: FCNL’s Quaker
Nuclear Disarmament Program led the lobbying strategy that resulted in
four separate committees in Congress zeroing out funding for a new,
multi-billion nuclear bomb plant. The program is effectively
discontinued.
Congress Reaffirms Ban on Permanent Military Bases
in Iraq: For the second year in a row, Congress approved the
FCNL-initiated pro-posal to ban the U.S. government from estab-lishing
permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq.
No New Nuclear Weapons: FCNL’s Quaker Nuclear
Disarmament Program led the lobbying strategy that resulted in Congress
ap-proving legislation which includes a provision eliminating all
funding for the administration’s proposed new nuclear bomb, the
“Reliable Rep-lacement Warhead” program (RRW). The
Presi-dent signed the legislation just before the new year.
Congress Bans Cluster Bomb Exports: Congress
approved, and the president signed, legislation which includes a
one-year ban on the export of most types of cluster bombs, providing a
first clear victory for FCNL’s campaign to ban cluster bombs.
Stopping Nuclear Proliferation: Con-gress approved
legislation which increases fund-ing for nuclear non-proliferation to
more than $500 million above the President’s budget re-quest. The
money will primarily be used to secure and destroy old stockpiles of
bomb-grade nuclear materials overseas.
With a budget of a little more than $4 million, FCNL
is a small player in all the lob-bying that goes on in Washington. But
the work of its professional staff on behalf of or against particular
legislation (say for example further funding for the war in Iraq) is
amplified by the lobbying that its constituents around the
country do, either through visits to their legislators’ dis-trict
or Washington offices or through phone calls, e-mails, or letters. FCNL
has a sophis-ticated website (www.fcnl.org) that allows sup-porters who
receive its weekly legislative action alerts to contact their members
of Congress, and provides sample language for letters or e-mail. From
July 1, 2006, to June 30, 2007, more than 105,000 such messages were
sent to members of Congress by FCNL supporters through this electronic
system. Of these 34% or more than 35,000 messages related to the Iraq
war. Some 12,000 or 12% dealt with civil liberties related legislation.
To amplify its voice as a lobby group FCNL engages
Friends and others at the local level through its ongoing “War Is
Not the An-swer” campaign. It now has yard sign distributors in
all 50 states and more than half of of the 435 congressional districts.
In the past six years, it has distributed more than 400,000 yard and
window signs, bumper stickers, and other materials to people around the
country and around the world. Each month it distributes about 22,000
news-letters to contributors as well as to monthly meet-ings and
Friends churches and to all 535 members of Congress. It also is
engaging a younger gene-ration of more tech-savvy individuals through
My Space and Facebook and has more than 1,000 on its list serve to
young adult Friends.
FCNL provides information and analysis that has
allowed members of BFM to engage with our members of Congress. In
the last year the P&SJ Committee has facilitated several
lobby visits. In January Bob and Jane Nutter, Ross Capon, Carolyn
Byerly, and Liz Hofmeister met with an aides to Senators Ben Cardin and
Barbara Mikulski about the Iraq war and how to disengage. While we were
at Cardin's office, the senator briefly stopped by and talked with us
and shared his thoughts and some of what he has been doing. Bob, Jane
and Liz and Stacey Fitzsimmons met personally with Congressman Chris
Van Hol-len in late February about Iraq war funding.
FCNL is a voice for Quaker concerns. But in the end,
Quakers as individuals have to be the ones to carry our own concerns to
our elected representatives.
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