Moni Goes To Washington-Day 3

Our last day (May 8) in Washington was going to be spent on the senate side. I needed to talk to Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL) in addition to a few other peeps since SR 909, the senate version of the Hate Crimes bill had been introduced and was in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I like being in DC so the days I have to pack my stuff in preparation for our departure from Washington are always bittersweet ones for me. It was also going to have time pressure because Polar and I had to hit the road and head back to the Bluegrass State and our lives here.

I can also say the DC newscasts are hardly ever boring. The first night we flip on the news we see the dustup over same gender marriage. Last night we watched a strip mall gas explosion caught on a security camera.

But back to your regularly scheduled post.

We arrived at the Dirksen Senate Office Building and after clearing security I checked the electronic info board to make sure we were in the right building for Sen. Burris' office. The app in Polar's iPhone stated that he was in Dirksen, but the board said that he was in the Russell Senate Office Building.

So we had to hoof it to the tunnel and head over to Russell. We arrived at his office a few moments later after I took a photo in the Russell building atrium. He wasn't in and the person who handled those issues was out of the office. We were advised by the person we did talk to at the desk that Sen. Burris was a cosponsor of SR 909 and dropped off the info packet before heading to our next office..

We headed to Sen. Evan Bayh's (D-IN) office and after patiently waiting a few moments were told that the person handling GLBT issues in that office had called in sick hat morning. So once again another packet dropoff without a chat.

We then headed to Sen. Richard Lugar's (R-IN) office in the Hart SOB. You'll note we didn't even bother trying to talk to our own Kentucky senators, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) or Jim Bunning (R-KY) who were in the Russell SOB.

It's been a longstanding congressional tradition that you give constituents who take their precious time to come to DC a few minutes, even if you disagree with them politically. In 2007 I got to see an LA in Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson's (R-TX) office even though I'm on the opposite end of the political galaxy from her.

But in McConnell's and Bunning's cases, if you ain't a foaming at the mouth winger, they won't see you. What I'd like to see is somebody with a 'D' behind their names replacing both of them. We'll get our chance to oust Bunning next year.

We arrived at Sen. Lugar's office and got 15 minutes chat time with one of the aides there. He advised us that the senator has 'small business issues' about ENDA, but dose support SR 909. After thanking the LA for his time, we bounced to the cafeteria for a meeting with the rest of our lobbyist and lunch since it was now approaching 1 PM.

We caught up with 'errbody' in the Dirksen cafeteria and spent an hour eating lunch, exchanging info, notes and stories as I handed off my remaining info packets to Ness and Toni. They were planning to hit a few more offices on both the House and Senate side while we hit the road.

We were already aware of the severe thunderstorms smacking Kentucky along the route we were planning to transit home and briefly considered rerouting further north through Columbus and Indy to get back home.

We decided to take our normal route back to Kentucky and wanted to be transiting West Virginia before dark. Polar still has bad memories about a 2002 DC trip in which a pregnant deer stepped in front of a Grand Am he'd lovingly restored. He and another passenger were on I-79 headed south near Weston, WV on the way back to Louisville and both the car and deer lost.

Batting mid-afternoon traffic on the Capital Beltway torpedoed that plan and we didn't arrive at Morgantown, WV until almost 7:30 PM, so we decided to stop there and eat my birthday dinner before resuming our trip. It also would give the heavy rain a chance to clear the area before we tackled the dreaded nighttime southward leg on I-79 toward Charleston.

We slogged through patches of heavy rain all the way to the Charleston area after getting our grub on. It finally cleared out as we intercepted I-64 west for the remaining five hour run home.

I crawled into bed at 4 AM early Saturday morning tired but hopeful that this time, after eleven years of lobbying efforts, that SR 909 and the impending ENDA bill will finally become the law of the land.

Moni Goes To Washington-Day 2

The heavy drenching rain ending Day 1 gave way to a beautiful clear, cool and sunny May 6 day in Washington.

After emerging from the Capitol South Metro station Polar and I arrived on the Hill and headed straight to the Longworth HOB cafeteria after dropping off some promised information packets to the offices I'd visited the previous day. I'd finally picked them up during our initial strategy meeting the night before.

My task was simple. I had the mission of hitting as many CBC offices as possible and I was going to have to do it with a rookie lobbyist in tow. Since I knew it was going to be next to impossible for me to cover all 43 offices in the limited amount of time I had, I just decided on the train ride in to hit CBC leadership and whatever offices I passed in the various House Office Buildings along the way.

We arrived in the cafeteria and waited to hook up with Ness and the rest of our party. Since we had two newbies, we decided to take 'errbody' as a group to Rep. Al Green's (D-TX) office to give them an idea of what and how to do it.

On the way there I started my training by explaining to my partner Ro some of the basics. Lobbying is more than just advocating yes or no for a bill and asking for its passage. You have to engage your active and passive listening skills in addition to your powers of observation. You have to build personal relationships. It's calling upon your lifetime accumulated knowledge base. It's having a good working grasp of civics and government and how it works.

Passion and idealism is fine and an excellent starting point, but it must be balanced with discerning 'the art of the politically possible'.

If you're planning on lobbying Congress or any governmental body on behalf of this community, one thing that must end is your detachment to politics or the news. You cannot be willfully politically ignorant and be an effective lobbyist.

Watching CNN, C-SPAN, MSNBC, FOX (to know what The Enemy is up to) The Hill newspaper/website is a must and reading various newspapers becomes necessary as well.

You must also acquire a broad based knowledge as to what's transpiring in the transgender community so that you can converse intelligently and authoritatively about it. You never know if you'll be called on in an office or to give bill testimony about a hate crime that happened in California, a discrimination case that occurred in Texas, a police beatdown in Tennessee or an ID case in Illinois.

We arrived at the office a few moments later in the Rayburn building. One thing I also noted is that the CBC members, now reflecting the increased clout of seniority and the important leadership roles many have in the 110th Congress aren't clustered in the Cannon HOB. They now have offices in the Rayburn and Longworth buildings where the House power players are.

While Ness was talking to the LA in Rep. Green's office, I poked my head in to see his Chief of Staff Jacqueline Ellis. The last time I was there in 2007 she was catching hell on the phone from a local minister who was expressing in not so Christian terms his opposition to the hate crimes bill. We had a wonderful conversation in the aftermath of that.

When I poked my head in, I said to her "I see you aren't getting screamed at on the phone today." She looked up, saw my smiling face and gave me a big hug as we talked for a few minutes about the office move.

I stopped in Rep. Bobby Scott's (D-VA) office, and had wonderful conversations in Rep. Keith Ellison's (D-MN) and Rep. Gwen Moore's (D-WI) offices. I advised Rep. Moore's LA about the Sierra Broussard discrimination lawsuit that's about to kick off in Appleton, WI. I also asked them to convey my appreciation for their hate crime votes and hoped they would do the same for ENDA.

I ended up cutting my day short because my partner had finals to study for. After dropping off some promised information packets in a few offices I'd visited the previous day, it was off to the Capitol South Metro station and dinner at a Fuddruckers near our hotel. I haven't eaten at one since I moved from Houston and I was eagerly awaiting to opportunity to chow down there once again.

Two days down, one to go.

Back To The Hill-The Lobby Day Report

Got back yesterday evening after spending two days in Washington DC taking part in NTAC's portion of Transgender Lobby Week.

AC, Dawn and I shoved off from Louisville at 6:30 AM Tuesday morning. We arrived in Washington DC about 4:30 PM after driving eastward across Kentucky, West Virginia and Maryland. Had a lobby training session at IFGE headquarters a few hours after we arrived at our Silver Spring, MD area hotel. We were also stunned to hear after we flipped the XM to the Randi Rhodes Show about Jerry Falwell's death followed by Yolanda King's the next day. We also found it interesting that the Newsweek article on gender was published just before we left for DC.

At IFGE headquarters I was reunited with my fellow Houstonians Vanessa Edwards-Foster, Jackie Thorne and Josephine Tittsworth along with a few other peeps in the community. Dawn, Vanessa and I had a blast acting out various lobbying scenarios and listening to AC's briefing laying out our strategy for the upcoming two days of lobbying. We were concentrating on HR 1592, the Hate Crimes Bill which passed the House before we arrived, HR 2015, The Employment Non-Discrimination Act or ENDA for short, and HR 1117, the Real ID Repeal Act that removes Title II from it. It's an issue of major importance to transpeeps because Real ID reverts our gender codes on licenses back to birth gender irregardless of how long we've been transitioned.

My task along with Dawn's was to hit as many of the 43 Congressional Black Caucus offices as we could visit, with priority on the CBC leadership, those holding committee chairmanships and subcommittee chairmanships. The other lobbyists were also told not to hit a CBC office without us. Too many times over the years we've had instances of non-African Americans hitting CBC offices and saying stupid crap like African-American transpeople don't exist. NTAC also targeted other key members of the House and Senate delegations as well. While we didn't have the numbers or star power that the NCTE peeps had for their one day event, we had far more experienced and politically savvy people who'd done multiple lobby days to pair our newbies up with.

Over the next two days (Wednesday and Thursday) we hit many of the CBC offices and a few others in the House and Senate. We had substantive conversations with many staffers concerning the issues important to transpeeps. I even got to take a photo with my birth state senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) along with Vanessa and Jo. We also talked to Senator Hutchinson's staffers about the reason I'm living in Louisville now along with a few other issues.

It wasn't all hard work. We did get to make our traditional lobbying pilgrimage to the place where NTAC was born in 1999, Bethesda's La Panetteria Italian restaurant. We also chowed down at a Tex-Mex styled place in Silver Spring. We spent a lot of time in between lobby appointments and drop ins talking to various peeps on Capitol Hill and each other. AC and I also hopped into the van and took a mini-tour of DC. We drove past the Howard U campus, parts of downtown, Chinatown, the Smithsonian, the Spy Museum and The Mall. They've also finally broken ground for the construction of the Martin Luther King Memorial as well and I'm looking forward to seeing that when it's completed.

I also noted the major change that has happened since my 1999 visit to Capitol Hill besides the new Visitor's Center under construction: the ramped up security. Capitol Police armed with M-16's patrolling the grounds and armed Capitol police officers at the checkpoints and crash barriers. If you're riding the subway repetitive messages remind you to immediately report to Metro Transit police if you see someone leave something behind on a train or in the stations.

I got a firsthand taste of why former rep Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) went off on the Capitol Police officers last year. I had several packets in hand as I entered the security checkpoint in the Longworth Building and I was held up at security. After they took down my name and had me identify who I was with I was told moments later I'd have to throw them away.

When I asked when this policy had been changed and wanted to know under what statute they had the authority to order that the officer produced a white folder. I was pissed off after having to not only throw those packets away but embarrassed about being profiled like that in front of a bunch of white peeps also trying to enter the building. The thing that also upset me was that it was an African-American officer jacking me up at security. He apologized for it and I told him he was only doing his job but it didn't get my lobbying day off to a great start.

I was just calming down from the leftover pissivity I had about being profiled at the checkpoint when Dawn came back from her forays in two offices and reported that the senate version of the ENDA bill Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) was about to introduce didn't include transpeople. That caused us to immediately shift our Senate talking points to deal with this possibility. We'll see in a few days whether the Kennedy bill (S.717) gets introduced without the House ENDA bill language.

Despite the bull feces at the checkpoint, I did enjoy my trip back to the Hill even though I didn't get to see my own congressmember John Yarmuth (D-KY). I'll have to rectify that on my next trip. I hope that while I was in the various offices the staffers and members saw me as just another fellow American exercising her constitutional rights. I also hope that the first timers who were lobbying with us enjoyed the experience and reveled in the self-esteem boost that it gives you.

Now I'm just finishing up the rest of my lobbying reports and waiting for my photo to hit the mailbox from Sen. Hutchinson's office.

On The Road Again

Well peeps, in less than 12 hours I'll be rolling toward our nation's capital to lobby in favor of ENDA and hate crimes.

So why am I taking a few days out of my schedule to lobby for these bills? Well, one of my guiding principles is to leave the world in a better position than when I arrived on the scene. I want the transkids who are now six and seven years old to have it better than we did. I don't want them having to wade through all the intolerance, ignorance and bull that we've have to endure. It's up to my generation to make sure that happens.

To borrow Dr. King's eloquent words, I want them to be judged on the content of their character. I want them to be able to achieve their dreams. I don't want them to be afraid to dream or live their lives like I was because I was fearful of what would happen if my gender issues were discovered. I want them to be able to contribute to American society without facing the resistance and limits that we've struggled to overcome. It's also another way I use my talents to give back and help build the community.

As much as I'm eagerly looking forward to lobbying on a Capitol Hill in which the Democrats are in control, it's the road trip I'm really psyched for. I've always liked road trips as I've stated on numerous occasions. In addition I relish the opportunity to see some old friends from around the nation and meet some new ones.

II think every American needs to get to Washington D.C. at least once in their lifetime. You need to see for yourselves how the legislative process works. There's nothing like being in DC and sitting in a hearing or a House or Senate session, watching the debates or talking to your congreessmember or senator. I've done that at the state and city council level but I really need to try to do it for the federal government level as well.

If I get access to a computer I'll try to update the blog and report to you TransGriot readers what's happening during Transgender Lobby Week. I'll be putting on my journalist cap and conducting a few interviews while I'm there as well.

Now I need to finish washing this last load of clothes and get some sleep. Got a long drive ahead of me.