Update, Strategy, Schedule, etc.

Congress goes on recess August 9 and even though a mark-up hearing on HR3149 has been rumored for a couple weeks now, our inside information says it’s NOT going to happen before the recess. That’s actually good news in that it buys us more time to get it together and prepare of battle. Sharpen those pitch forks and prepare those torches because when they return on September 13 until October 8 (when they break for more campaigning) it’s going to be all out war!

They are coming home, leaving the safe secure confines of the beltway and you need to be ready to pounce on any and all town hall meetings. Contact the offices of your members of Congress in both the Senate and House this week and find out where and when they have town hall meetings scheduled and make plans to crash the party to deliver our HR3149 message. Unlike past years, many are bypassing town hall events because they simply don’t have the guts to answer to their boss a.k.a. YOU, but the ones that do show their face need to hear from YOU in person loud and clear. Pass HR3149 NOW!

We’re shifting our strategy somewhat and pivoting toward “election politics” in order to get the job done before November. Our goal is simple, make HR3149 and employment credit checks an election issue for every candidate. We’re going to force them to publicly come out either for it or against it. This strategy will require just a little more work from you than usual, but not much. In many cases you’ll have to hold your nose, park your partisan party politics at the door and instead think strategically. It doesn’t matter who you support or who you’re going to vote for in November. What matters is forcing these worms out of their holes (so to speak). If your current member of the House is NOT a co-sponsor of HR3149, then they are NOT on board our cause. Good intentions and comments such as "I have to wait and see the bill" JUST DON’T CUT IT! If you know your House representative’s name use the following link to see if they are one of the 55 co-sponsors (if you don’t know them at the moment then refer back to this link once you find out): http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-3149

In short, start by figuring out who’s running against your current House representative (and members of the Senate if they are up for re-election this cycle) and ask them via e-mail and telephone where they stand on the issue and request their support. After this effort we'll come back and use our state-by-state database of newspapers/contacts to A) force the candidates to answer to the public via media pressure and B) get the word out on the issue to all voters in your area.

Will the strategy work? Yes, without a doubt, but only if we execute. We already have one prime example in the MA governor’s race where the independent candidate, Cahill, just came out in favor of a prohibition against employment credit checks. Now the Republican and Democratic candidate can’t hide from the issue or take the business lobby PAC money (a.k.a. bribes) in exchange for ignoring the issue. We’re simply using that same concept for the Congressional races. So let’s get started . . .

PS Keep the faith! Activity is way up, media mentions and articles are up, more people are awakening and coming to the cause and momentum is building. Many allied groups are coming together behind the scenes preparing to push and fight in September, but we need every citizen we can get so continue to recruit new members to our group FAST! Now we just have to bring the issue to a head and make it pop via election year pressure. Right now we have the power via the voting booth. The overwhelming vast majority of politicians will throw lobbyists (or their mother) and PAC money under the bus in order to either stay in office or to get in office. It’s called “democracy” ;-) All we have to do is force the issue . . . stand with 90 percent of the people or the corporate money. It’s decision time!