Legislative Interest

Here are some happenings of legislative and chapter affairs interest at MOAA HQ.  Report comes from Norb Ryan's weekly email to the board of directors:

The Government Relations team has set up briefings for most of the services’ legislative fellows, who will be working in House and Senate offices during the 2009 legislative year.  The Marine Corps fellows will be the first to visit us next week.  The number of fellows will increase significantly next year, to the point where we'll have to rent an outside facility for some of the briefings (e.g., the USAF has 35 fellows – too many to fit in the Marix room).  We always get a great return on our investment of this time, and we gain some key contacts/supporters in legislative offices that sometimes help us generate sponsors for our initiatives.

We've gotten several hundred returns on our survey of members' attitudes on the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" issue.  Interestingly, 64% of respondents so far think the law should be repealed to let anyone serve.  When we look only at respondents who are currently serving, the number rises to 75%.  Steve Strobridge will be in touch with the Government Relations Committee next week to help the Committee begin crafting a proposed position for the Board to consider at the November Board meeting.  If you'd like to provide the Committee a personal view, please contact Steve at steves@moaa.org or ext. 103, and he'll make sure the Committee gets your input.

Our Council and Chapter Affairs Department continues to make final preparations for next week’s Chapter Presidents Symposium in Lake Tahoe.  Meanwhile, initial response to the special chapter-recruiting cover-wrap on this month'sMilitary Officer is strong, with more than 800 postcards returned in the first week.

About Legislative Interest
By Chuck Latimer      

     The Spokane Chapter belongs to MOAA’s Washington State Council of Chapters (WSCOC).  As we are a border chapter, if Idaho had a council of chapters, we’d cooperate with that council as well.  With only three chapters, not including Spokane, the Idaho chapters have not seen the need to form a council.  MOAA national leaves such decisions up to the chapters in a state to make that decision.  Even if a state has a council, each chapter decides on its own to join or not.
 
     The mission of a state council is two-fold.  First is its legislative involvement and the second is its mission to help the chapters within the council in all appropriate ways.  The second mission is primarily addressed by sharing problems and successes at the semi-annual council meetings.  The chapter presidents and/or other representative attending try to learn from each other ways to improve operations or ways to avoid pitfalls.  Newsletters are exchanged on a regular basis as well.
 
      WSCOC’s legislative function has several aspects.  WSCOC nominates a member to serve on the Governor’s Veterans Advisory Council (VAAC), so that we may have some input into the legislative and administrative processes through that avenue.  WSCOC also pays dues and provides manpower for the Veterans Legislative Coalition (VLC), made up of representatives from many veterans organizations within Washington.  In fact, MOAA members were among the leaders of several organizations which originally formed the VLC.

      The VLC monitors legislative activities in the Washington State legislature.  For WSCOC, our VLC representatives – all members of the Olympia, Mount Rainer, or Seattle chapters – keep track of certain bills, share information about the bills, and, when appropriate, ask chapters to urge the legislators from their areas to back or oppose bills.  In the past, the VLC has sought out legislators to sponsor bills of interest.

       You may remember a few years ago a group was pushing a universal health care bill that, if passed, would have threatened the health care system for veterans, active duty military and retired military personnel.  A group of MOAA members testified against the bill in person, and I submitted written testimony opposing the bill, which quickly died in committee.  The quickness of the death of that particular bill was largely due to the VLC’s rapid response, with WSCOC taking the lead. 

      At the upcoming Council meeting in May, we’ll be reviewing the past legislative session and looking to the future.  We’ll also be talking about how we can better support MOAA’s national legislative agenda via grassroots activities at the chapter and council levels.