One Voice Against Cancer Lobby Day

I was asked to participate in this annual event by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society since I am a patient advocate for them. One Voice Against Cancer is a consortium of Cancer organizations that get together once a year to lobby congress for more funding. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is one of the groups in the consortium. It is organized by the American Cancer Society Action network, I believe.
Lobby days this year were June 16-17. The first day we gathered in the Liaison Hotel for a wonderful lunch followed by a half day of training as to how to lobby congress. The introductions were done by members of the American Cancer Society Action Network followed by a panel of congressional staffer who told us about the climate on the Hill. The budget is still in a state of flux in that no budget has yet been passed or even discussed due to other urgent issues The President has made his budget requests though
A former congressman spoke about how it was to be a member of congress and how we should approach the congressional staffers who are for the most part young. Many of them would be still smarting from long days and nights working on the Health Care Bill.
Then we were giving the packet of information about what specific requests we would ask for, they are in summary:

1. Sustain current level of support for medical research and provide the NIH with $35.2 billion.
2. Support a funding level of $601 million for Center for Disease Control (CDC) and prevention
3. Provide Health Resources and Services Administration with $267.3 million to support Title VII Nursing Programs and $18.6 Million for Patient Navigator Programs.
4. Fully Fund the Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Cancer Act by providing $30 million for this program.
5. Support and increase of $495 million for the Food and Drug Administration to bring research to the bedside.

Of all the asks only the last one was an increase over the budget.
Finally we were divided into teams of about six people by state and given our assignments for the next day. The full team of six people were to visit both state senate offices and each one was to visit their congressman and two other congress people from that state, a total of five visits in the day which was a lot. Each visit was only 15 minutes long. The staff had made the appointments which were subject to change the next day. In s addition each state team was given a packet of information for each congress person in the state to drop off at the congress person's office.
Following the marching orders, our team met and decided who was going to do what and when.
That evening we had a reception at the Dubliner Bar with drinks and snacks.
The next day Thursday was lobby day. We met in the morning for breakfast and a pep talk and then our teams set off to the Hill to start the work. We found out that our first appointment of the day, which happened to be with Congressman Lance, was changed to the afternoon so we had nothing to do until our 11 AM appointment with Senator Lautenberg's staff person. So since it was an unusually nice and mild day in DC I walked from the hotel to the Capitol and circumnavigated it until I got to the Hart office building, by which time I was tired. So I met two of my other team members sitting on a bench and we sat and waited for the time. The two team members were a husband and wife from LLS. He was an Acute Leukemia patient and she was his wife and social worker. On our team, we had one other LLS person, a Susan Komen foundation person, and a Prostate Cancer person who happened to be the son of Betty Gallo who runs The Dean and Betty Gallo Center
Prostate Cancer at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey.
Our first meeting with Senator Lautenberg's staff person was our worse. Our team hung in there in spite of the fact she attacked us for coming at the wrong time of year. She said the Senator had made his budget requests in February and they could not be changed. We said there is no budget and things can always be changed. But we came out of the room satisfied that we had made our points, hit all five requests.
The next meeting with Menendez's staffer went better and so did all the other meetings. After the meetings on the Senate side we split into teams of two to talk to our respective congress people. Since Congressman Lance was late for his appointment, he was the only member of congress that we met personally, the four of us split into two and two since the appointments were back to back in different buildings. After the last staff visit to congressman Scott Garrett's office, my team of two spilt and each took some of the packets of information to drop off at the offices of the other New Jersey congress people.
While we were wandering the halls of congress I ran into Congressman Lewis. In fact I looked at him and I said, I know you, but I could not place his name and he introduced himself. Wow, he was part of the Civil Right movement with MLK Jr...!
After the last packet of information was dropped off I took a taxi back to the hotel and relaxed after a long day!
Would I do it again, you bet! In fact I will follow up on this visit by thanking the staff people for their time.

Note to see the photos from this trip go to http://picasaweb.google.com/sisterchemist/OVAC2010#