continued from the January 2017 Newsletter
Our task force’s Plan for 2017, tentatively:
Focus on getting back all previous cosponsors next Congress, as soon as the two bills are reintroduced, with new numbers. It would have needed only ONE MORE to bring us up to over half the House.
And then we can focus on those returning Dems who did not cosponsor last year; I believe there are only eight or nine of those in all. ( A couple of Dems involved with party leadership have a policy of not cosponsoring bills, but are nonetheless LWCF supporters – such as Rep Pelosi (my Congresswoman) or Rep Hoyer of MD.
2. Focus on NEW members of Congress, also as soon as the bills are reintrpduced. New members of BOTH parties. Because of their direct access to Congressional leadership, Republicans may in some ways be more valuable as cosponsors than Dems.
3. In the 115th Congress – we are losing at least 28 present cosponsors of HR 1814. (I might have missed one or two. These are from Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington/. For each of those districts, I will ask the relevant Chapters to urge the new holder of the seat, to cosponsor—if only because their predecessor was a supporter. In some cases, where we endorsed the new member—should be relatively easy
4. Where Republicans left or were ousted, who were NOT cosponsors—we should look on their successors as prime targets too; giving them some information about past projects IN THEIR Districts made possibly through LWCF funding. I have written down 23 names in this category, and will prepare some district-specific info for all those-- a few will be easy, such as Sierra Club endorsed new Dems in two districts of Nevada. Relevant states are Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, new Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin.
5. Around March, we will probably again start to seek Congressional sign-ons to an LWCF Appropriations letter; this is not DIRECTL relevant to reauthorization, but it is, indirectly, as any member that signs such as letter is a natural target for cosponsorship. Cosponsorship of a bill is a mgreater commitment than signing-on to a letter—they get tons of sign-on requests all the time…
3. CHAPTERS with LWCF cosponsors in 114th Congress:
42 out of 50 states had cosponsors; in addition DC and the territories (Guam, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands all cosponsored). All California Chapters had at least one cosponsor--wait, not sure abut Kern Kaweah..).
The eight states without any LWCF cosponsors are unlikely to have any cosponsors next Congress either – (Boy, I sure hope hope hope someone will prove me wrong on that pessimistic statement!)
These 8 states (possibly the reddest of the red?) are:
Alaska
Arkansas
Kansas
North Dakota
Oklahoma
South Dakota
Utah
Wyoming
States which had the ENTIRE delegation (Senate too) as cosponsors:
Connecticut
Hawaii
Massachusetts
New Hampshire.
Massachusetts’ was the largest delegation to be “all aboard”; of states with large delegations, New York came the closest, at end of the Congress, New York lacked only ONE representative to be fully aboard one or both of the two bills and Senate too. New York also had the most Republican cosponsors. – eight. California had the most cosponsors in all—40 including the Senators, but zero Republicans. In Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, states with only one cosponsor each, the cosponsor was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Most of the 45 members of that Black Caucus were cosponsors--three notable exceptions -- and all these had been endorsed by Sierra Club for reelection -- are Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and Al Green and Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas. The one Republican on this caucus was not a cosponsor either, Mia Love of Utah.
Enough of that! In the meantime—Remember the very useful website put out by the LWCF Coalition (of which Sierra Club is a member): http://www.lwcfcoalition.org/
It gives lots of specific information for EVERY state, and, on the interactive map, found at http://www.lwcfcoalition.org/usa-conservation.html, there is LWCF project info for EVERY county in the country. Also attached – our Sierra Club background fact sheet on the LWCF campaign—newly updated, and cosponsor lists, updated to today. (I hope soon obsolete...)