"Building for America's Future" was the slogan for the ARA Legislative Conference
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The National Alliance for Retired Americans held its Legislative Conference September 4-7 at the Washington Hilton in Washington DC. Participants each received a new promotional video. We were instructed to show it to every local retiree organization possible.
Texans from Austin, Houston, Dallas, and Tarrant County participated in training workshops and heard amazing speakers. Among the workshops were these:
What's up on Capitol Hill?
Community Organizing Skills: Building Partnerships
Issues Organizing Through Direct Action
Communicating the Alliance Message to the Public
Here is a short list of the main speakers:
George Kourpias, President of ARA
Ed Coyle, Executive Director
Judith Cato, Vice President
Richard L Trumka, Secretary Treasurer of the AFL-CIO
John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO
Presidential campaigners Hillary Clinton, Dennis Kucinich, and Elizabeth, wife
of John Edwards
Plus a long list of statisticians and political experts
President George Kourpias, Senator Hillary Clinton, and Executive Director Ed Coyle
The 600 or so delegates to the conference also spent half a day climbing around Capitol Hill to visit their congresspersons. Although we talked about many issues, the hottest one that day was the SCHIP (Children's health care insurance) bill approved by the House. The Senate had approved a much less effective version, and the two versions were in committee. The ARA position was that the Senate version should come up to the House version, which reversed some of the worst parts of the Medicare Drug bill of 2003.
Texans in Washington on September 5: Gene Lantz, Alice James, Congressman Chet Edwards, Bob Felzke, and Wanda Oliver.
The main point of the conference was to kick off the 2008 election campaign for America's seniors. As Executive Director Ed Coyle put it, "This is the beginning of our 2008 election work and the beginning of the end of the Bush Administration."
Seniors are feeling their strength. Coyle said that there is a new senior citizen every 7.5 seconds. America's senior population will double in the next 25 years. Even though President Bush captured the senior vote in 2004, Republicans clearly lost it in 2006. ARA members voted overwhelmingly for union-endorsed candidates in 2006, and they are now more upset with the status quo and general direction of American politics than ever.
President George Kourpias described the ARA: "The Alliance stands alone as a powerful, progressive grassroots army for retirees. What we will do this week is begin a 14 month-long effort, leading up to the 2008 elections, to provide greater training than ever on community activism, lobbying, communications, and organizing skills. This work will continue through our four regional Alliance meetings in 2008, plus all of your state conventions. Our regional meetings will be in Las Vegas, St Louis, Orlando, and Philadelphia. ...Brothers and sisters, I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that the Alliance for Retired Americans will be at the forefront of guaranteeing health care for all in this country!"
The pure power and enthusiasm of the senior's movement in America is extremely impressive. Trends within the labor movement as a whole, such as labor's role in the growing ideological debate, are even more important.
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