Lobbying Day Down in Washington

The Lobbying Day was a success! I think there were people here in Washington DC from something like twenty-seven states for the National Center for Transgender Equality Lobbying Day. I went down to Washington DC with a friend and we met with the staff from Senator’s Dodd and Lieberman and the staff from Representatives Larson and Murphy. The Connecticut delegation support the inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) but they voted or are voting for the non-inclusive bill, we had to make them aware of how important it is to have an inclusive bill.
We got down here Sunday afternoon and that night there was informal cocktail party at the hotel bar, it was a nice time to network and I met up with a number of friends that I hadn’t seen in a while to renew friendships. It was an early night because most of us were tired from traveling; it took me about six and half hours to drive down to Washington DC from Connecticut.
Monday was training day, there was a full eight hours of training. They went over all the details of the bill who was for the bill, who was against the bill, what was the opposition arguments against the bill, what points we should emphasis and what we should not emphasis. Then at night there was a reception to honor six Representatives who voted against the Non-inclusive ENDA, they lost their perfect score in supporting LGBT Rights from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) because they voted against the way the HRC wanted them to vote. The reception was covered by the Washington Blade and you can read the article and see the photos of the reception.
Tuesday, we got to the Capital bright and early to have our pictures taking (I will post them once I get a copy of them.) and then we walked up to the Dicken’s Senate Building cafeteria were we made a corner of the cafeteria our office. I hung out there until it was time to meet with Senator Dodd’s staff at 12:30 and then we went back to the cafeteria to fill out contact reports. At 2:00 we met with Senator Lieberman’s staff, at 3:00 with Representative Larson staff and at 4:00 with Representatives Murphy’s staff. So it was a long day running from one office to another. All of the legislators staff that we met said that the congressman was in full support of the gender inclusive ENDA, BUT would vote for the non-inclusive bill if it came up for a vote. We told them about New York and the passage of Sexual Orientation Employment Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA) and the promise to pass a gender bill, but that it has not passed in the six years since SONDA.
We left from Washington at about a quarter of nine and I got home at four, the traffic was light with only two traffics jams. One because of an accident on the New Jersey Turnpike and the other at the Tappan Zee due to construction.