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December 28, 2016

A huge ‘head start’ for the One Subject at a Time Act

So what did Downsize DC accomplish in 2016? Our mission is simple…

We want to downsize initiated force by The State.

We do this in three ways…

  1. Oppose legislation and regulation that moves in the wrong direction
  2. Support legislation that moves in the right direction
  3. Craft our own legislation to regulate politicians and State employees
  4. [Photo of Mia Love]

We made progress in all these ways during 2016. Specifically…

Representative Mia Love reintroduced our One Subject at a Time Act (OSTA), AND we achieved a record 14 co-sponsors!

We also…

  • Gained a new partner in Rep. Rod Blum (R-IA), who revived an old bill of ours, The Fiscal Responsibility Act. It cuts congressional pay each time they run a deficit.
  • Announced eight sponsors for a bill to repeal draft registration
  • Helped win declassification of “28 pages” showing Saudi complicity in the 9/11 attacks
  • Took additional steps toward “disentangling” the U.S. from Saudi Arabia
  • Started a project to install new software that will give Downsize DC 16 new powers!
  • Made progress with our educational and legal efforts through our partner, the Downsize DC Foundation

Let’s look at some of this progress more closely and preview our plans for 2017.

DC Downsizers had two successes with regard to Saudi Arabia

We want to end the “entangling alliance” with Saudi Arabia. Declassifying the “28 pages” helped that cause. Those pages demonstrate high-level, Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks. We’ve kept up the pressure, since that victory, contributing to two more successes…

SUCCESS #1: Senator Rand Paul was able to force a vote on his proposal to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia

This may sound like a small thing, especially given that Rand’s proposal was defeated. But it’s actually amazing that it even came to a vote, given what a threat it was to the business of the Military Industrial Complex. Our interpretation…

Congress is increasingly willing to consider proposals that question or reduce the longstanding U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia. Here’s fresh evidence of that…

SUCCESS #2: The Senate voted (97 to 1) to OVERRIDE President Obama’s veto of a bill allowing 9/11 families to sue Saudi Arabia.

This is a huge step toward disentangling the U.S. from evil Saudi Arabia, which is now backing ISIS. Once victim families get their case into the courtroom, there could be even more revelations of Saudi complicity in 9/11 and the terror U.S. foreign policy has caused.

HR 4523 (and S. 3041) — legislation to repeal draft registration

Thomas Massie (KY) is the newest co-sponsor; that’s 8 Reps and 1 Senator sponsoring this bill.

We also made progress in partnership with the Downsize DC Foundation. Specifically…

  • Improving Zero Aggression Project software.
  • Adding 22 new Mental Levers to the Zero Aggression website — these are mini-articles that explain the libertarian philosophy in bite size chunks, usually less than 200 words per idea. See the full collection here.
  • Our lawyers filed eight amicus briefs in key cases, and four extensive comments about proposed regulations.

You can see the full Foundation report here.

CQ/Roll-Call Engage website

CQRC-Engage will allow us to do 16 powerful things we couldn’t do before. It will also cost us less to maintain. But converting to it isn’t free. I’m excited to report that…

  1. We’ve raised the $38,000 required for this conversion project
  2. The programming and web design happening right now

We think this is a great time to have so many new tools. Donald Trump’s election might be signaling incumbents that they need to take populist, anti-Washington actions. So…

We’ve set a goal to launch our new Engage website in late-January. By then, many of the new members of Congress will be nearly settled into their offices, and it will be time to restart the process of getting co-sponsors for our proposals.

The 115th Congress

We want to go further and faster than ever in the next Congressional session. We want to get our bills reintroduced as early as possible, and then employ a multi-faceted approach to recruiting more co-sponsors. Specifically, we want to use…

  • Ads on Facebook and radio
  • Outreach in social media
  • Direct mail to recruit new DC Downsizers
  • Targeted meetings with congressional offices
  • Media outreach in Washington, DC

Each activity will turn up the intensity on members of Congress. The goals will be simple.

  1. Get One Subject at a Time & the Fiscal Responsibility Act reintroduced
  2. Equalize and exceed our co-sponsor levels for these bills
  3. Find someone to introduce the Read the Bills Act and the Write the Laws Act

We think we can achieve record progress — a two-year Congressional term unlike any in our history. We intend to begin this session with a HUGE “head start” for the One Subject at a Time Act” by getting it introduced ten months earlier (compared to the last session). Best of all…

Our monthly pledgers and one generous donor are covering all of our basic bills operating expenses for the first quarter!

That means…

Every additional dollar you contribute will go directly to the promotional and outreach activities described above!

Can you help by making a one-time contribution or by starting or increasing a monthly pledge?

  • Our one-time donors give between $2 and $11,000.
  • Our two largest monthly pledgers give $250 and $148, respectively, while several put in $1. The average is about $11 per month.

You can contribute to DownsizeDC.org with Visa, Mastercard, Discover, or American Express using the secure web form, which also lists giving options for check-mailing, Pay Pal, and Bitcoin.

If you want a tax deduction, you can give, instead, to Downsize DC Foundation here.

Thank you for being a DC Downsizer. We’ll be back soon with more progress!

Jim Babka & Perry Willis

DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

If your comment is off-topic for this post, please email us at feedback@downsizedc.org

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