Two men have the power to get HR 3101 - and its future Senate equivalent - passed or kill it.
Who are they?
Virginia Representative Rick Boucher (D-9th)
AND Massachusetts Senator John Kerry (Democratic).Why do they have this much power? Why is it that these two men have the power to move HR 3101 (and a future Senate equivalent) no matter how many cosponsors we get?
They have this power because:
a. Rep. Rick Boucher is the chairperson of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications, Technology & the Internet.
b. Sen. John Kerry is the chairperson of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee's Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet.
We, the deaf and hard of hearing community, must push Rick Boucher to bring HR 3101 to the Subcommittee for a vote. We ESPECIALLY need for people who live in the area that Boucher represents, to push Boucher. Plus we must get John Kerry to introduce an exact mirror version of HR 3101 in the Senate. The best person to introduce a bill in the Senate is the person who chairs the commitee that would handle the bill, because the chair usually expedites (speeds up) votes on their own bills, and that person is Kerry!
ANOTHER problem that we have is that so far, NONE of the 23 cosponsors HR 3101 has are from the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, & the Internet. Without any support from within the Subcommittee, there is NO ONE to push Boucher to bring HR 3101 to the floor.
What can you do about these two men? If Boucher is your representative, contact his office to insist that he bring the HR 3101 bill to the floor. If you know anyone - family, friends, long-lost cousins - who live in his area, please let them know about HR 3101. It is CRITICAL that you network, network - ask around Facebook, on Twitter, through email and VP, if anyone knows anyone who lives in Boucher's area. We live in a world where social networking empowers us. Let's use the power of social networking to get Rick Boucher to bring the bill to the floor for a vote!
If you do not live in his area and do not know anyone living in his area, go ahead and contact his office anyway. He is less likely to listen to people not from his area, BUT if enough of us contact him, he may listen.
We must not let these two men deny us equal access to the Internet.
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if I recall correctly, Isn't Ed Markey from Massachusetts? Perhaps Rep. Markey can work with Sen. Kerry. Also, wasn't Kerry one of the players in the passage of the ADA in 1988? So, I would think that Kerry is "equal access friendly" :-)
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