Two proposed actions for No Labels From St. Louis
Jackson Thompson
I am writing on behalf of the St. Louis area No Labels chapter (what
should we be calling the local orgs?). We feel that getting members
becomes a much easier thing with having the name in the press and
showing that we are taking real action, as well as having events and
personalities that will draw attention to our group and it's goals. We
need to put to rest the idea that we are just saying, "Play nice kids"
and show that we are working for a fundamental shift in the way our
Government conducts business. More people will get involved if there is
action behind our words. We have two ideas that we would like to pass up
for possible action.
First, one of our members, Jeff Varady, noticed that the house.gov
committee web sites are basically partisan campaign ads. There are two
sires for each committee, one Republican, on Democrat.
http://financialservices.house.gov/ is a prime example, with
http://democrats.financialservices.house.gov/ as the minority site. The
use of these committee sites should be strictly for scheduling and
reporting purposes, not political advertising. This site
http://www.dotgov.gov/program_guidelines.aspx specifically (section 1b)
prohibits not only campaigning but the use of Party names or acronyms.
No Labels should take action to stop the use of Government resources for
Party purposes. The same with partisan mailings from members of
Congress. We believe this is the kind of action that will gain not only
press but respect. We don't think the majority of the country believes
that the Parties need to use Government funds and employees to get their
messages out, they have enough of their own money. This could even be a
place to file suit / charges against the Parties and their members for
misuse of Government funds, although getting them to stop with out going
that far would be the civil thing to do . We could get big press and
show we are not just about talking nice, we want our Government United
(that is our First name you know) and are doing something about it.
The Second thing we would like to do is more local, but we need support
from the national organization, including use of national contacts in
Washington. We would like to host a Town-hall with all the Members of
Congress from the St. Louis Metro area. Since our Metro area covers 2
states, MO and IL, that would mean 4 Senators and 6 Representatives. We
would like to do this during the Summer Congressional recess, that
should give us plenty of time to plan and would be a time when they all
should be in the area. What we would need from the national
organization would be some logistical support to make it an official No
Labels event. Invitation letters on No Labels letterhead, national press
releases, and possibly some of the leaders attending.
We need to come up with a means of handling local funding for this and
other local events. We can get locations and press for free or very low
cost, but there will be expenses involved (everything from sound systems
to name tags and water glasses). One of the goals behind an event like
this would be fund raising and member drive, as well as bring all
parties together to discuss issues with their constitutes. Would the
national organization allow us to form an LLC or 501(c)(4) for local
use, or create local accounts within the national organization? Also
would we be able to setup our own domain or get a NoLabels.org sub
domain in order to promote local activity.
Another area we would like to address and we think needs to have a
national stand is redistricting. Both Missouri and Illinois are loosing
a district each. We would like to see have a national platform to call
for fair, competitive districts, instead of Gerrymandering new Party
districts in.
Thank You,
Jackson Thompson
St. Louis No Labels
Jackson Thompson
through to the Google Group.
On 1/27/2011 1:55 PM, Kevin Walling wrote:
> Jackson - many thanks for your email. I'm including our founder, Nancy
> Jacobson, on my response as I don't know the specifics around setting up a
> separate c4 on the local level.
>
> We'll also be rolling out our new web platform in the coming weeks that will
> make it far easier for local and state leaders to connect with one another.
>
> Many thanks! Kevin