Contact the Senate Courts of Justice now about HB933
D'Arcy L McGreer
We all need to start communicating with the Senate Courts of Justice Committee. HB933 has already passed the House of Delegates. It happened very fast. We can only stop it now before the Senate committee and the full committee. If the bill does not get through the committee or the Senate then the Bill will die this session. It is estimated HB933 will be voted on in the committee about February 12th or later. All non-custodial parents paying child support, parents who are not and others who never did need to start their communications. If we start sending our communication to them now they will have an opportunity to read our communications. Just a few of us will not make a dent. We all need to do it. I suggest you send several emails or letters to all the committee members, one a day. In this way we can give the impression to their assistants there are more individuals than actually there are and more likely to get through to the Senator and make a greater impact on the Senator. Also, their assistants will not be able to and will not put the effort to read a lot information and documents for anyone one email. They will read more and absorb more over several days as they read new emails about this bill. They will then communicate to the Senator daily what the emails are about and the senator will hear for several days about HB933. Hopefully doubts will arise in the senator’s mind, which may lead in turn to them voting against HB933 or at least they will attach amendments to the bill that will be an improvement for child support paying fathers. Also by communicating now and over the next several days they will have time to read and digest the information so that if any of us can come to Richmond before the vote they will know something about the issues and can have a more intelligent conversation with us.
My suggestion if you are sending email, that you make it as short as this message up to this point in this message and end it with your contact information as you note in all my messages. The contact info is very important for them to take seriously you are a Virginian who lives in Virginia and votes. The more contact information you provide the more credibility you have. You might end your message with an offer to speak to the senator by phone if he wishes. It won’t happen but I think it adds credibility. You can end your thoughts about what particular problem with HB933 you wrote about and then write that they can get more information at this link or read this attached document. The idea is that each message will have only one and different attachment or link that supports what your are stating in your message. Each link or attached document can be about lot more than what you wrote, but your point about HB933 will be in the document or at the link. The FFV website Google Group has several messages with links and or documents you can use in your messages. Go the FFV website to read the messages. Many of the links and documents will be repeated by others communicating their criticisms of HB933 that may be the same as yours. The documents, links and criticisms can be the same. This is okay. We are trying to get through their assistants to them and then to educate them bit by bit and over and over again. They will only spend a very short time on your message of that day or will get a report from their assistant who will spend a little more time on your message. This is why the repeating of ideas, attachments and documents from many individuals I think is a good idea and your message needs to be short.
Sender of this message: D’Arcy L McGreer, Cell: 703-389-4496. 2200 Wilsom Blvd, Ste 102 – 271, Arlington, VA 22201-3324. FFV website: http://www.virginiafathers.org/. Reply to fathe...@gmail.com.
Your message should be as short as the above is with your contact information like mine above. To make this not too time consuming I would put the emails of all the committee in the “to” part of your email and your Senator and Delegate in the “cc” part of each message. Your legislatures will be more interested than the committee members because you are in their voting district. Also, if you can go to Richmond before the vote on HB933, stopping in their office means they will already know about your issue and your very brief time with them will be more productive. You could save a draft copy of your first message so you can easily get it and use it again to send another message to the committee and your senator. I am also going to copy to my delegate so that even if he did vote for HB933, he may change his opinion on HB933 after I have educated him and he may give me some helpful advice about stopping the bill from becoming law.
One advantage of doing this effort now so that if the bill passes the committee you will already have produced several emails that can be slightly modified to be sent to other senators who are not on the committee and will be voting on the bill when the bill comes before the full house.
This link will help you to learn who your Senator and delegate are: http://conview.state.va.us/whosmy.nsf/VGAMain?openform.
This is the webpage for Senate Courts of Justice committee: http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?141+com+S3.
Their email addresses are:
P.S. If you want to make it personal, that is about your situation, do this in a separate email than the emails about the logic, rationality, defects of HB933 with the supporting attached documents and links. Personal situations always have less credibility than just the “facts” and statistics about the effect of the bill or the logic and rational of the bill. But, your story will help counteract “sob tales” from those who want to increase child support. But, if you are not a custodial parent now or never were than your testimony in your email and verbal at the committee I think have much more credibility, just communicate this fact.
If the email campaign is too difficult or you do not agree with my plan above then call the committee members and your Senator and tell their assistants. See the committee link above and get the telephone numbers. But the most important point is to make some communication attempt regardless how bad, shallow or short or unsophisticated it is or you disagree with me how to communicate with the committee. What is most important is the Senators hear from Virginians about this bill.
P.S.S. If you want me to forward my emails I send so you can use them to help you communicate with the committee let me know.