One of our topics Saturday’s conference call (notes here) was how to make contact with our allies in congress. Jean from Green Bay mentioned that she and a couple of other people were going to go to one of Senator Russ Feingold’s upcoming Listening Meeting in Wisconsin.
The first opportunity is this Saturday on Valentine’s day (February 14) at a Listening Meeting in Chilton, events in Madison and potentially Milwaukee on March 1, a cable advertising opportunity in Green Bay on March 4, and more. To keep track of it all, we’re going to use a wiki page as the planning hub for this.
Here’s the current versions of our goals for the project:
- get a better understanding of the situation in Congress and Senator Feingold’s strategy
- get Sen Feingold to make a video on “what it means to get FISA right”
- introduce ourselves to Senator Feingold and get a working relationship in place
- pilot techniques that we can use as part of a 50-state strategy
- get blog and media attention, at least at the local and state level, and hopefully nationally as well
The wiki page also has a timetable, talking points, a link to draft email to Senator Feingold** — and a “help wanted” section, looking for volunteers. You, perhaps?
If you’ve got a little time to help with the media outreach, ad buy, or other planning, please let us know. And if you’re in Wisconsin, so much the better: it’d be great to bet more people there in person.
If you’re new to Get FISA Right, this is a great example of the self-organizing and distributed way we do things.  So please, check it out and get involved!
jon
PS: Thanks to Jean, Ben, Harry, and Nina on Facebook, and Frank and John in email, for getting the ball rolling on this.
* for best results, picture an emoticon instead of the heart. Except I haven’t figured out how to do that in WordPress yet.
** or maybe to Honorable Senator Russ Feingold. Does anybody know the proper etiquette for addressing a Senator?