Medill DC

They say one is the loneliest number.

Thu, 23 May 2013 21:05:00 -0400

But Democratic Rep. John Barrow of Georgia said he’s not standing on his own on the immigration bill he introduced Thursday.

“I don’t know how alone I’m gonna be in the House,” he told reporters during a press conference in front of the Capitol. “I know this: I’m not alone back home on this issue.”

The Keeping the Promise of IRCA Act—a reference to the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act that Barrow said failed to uphold the promise of border security—is the first and only piece of immigration legislation released so far in response to the Senate’s massive immigration reform bill, which was just voted out of the Judiciary Committee Tuesday after nearly two weeks of markups.

With the House’s bipartisan “Gang of Eight” expected to release its own immigration legislation shortly, Barrow’s move reads largely symbolic. Barrow is not a member of the Gang, nor has he introduced any immigration-related legislation during his eight years in office. He will begin building bipartisan support for the bill once the House is back from Memorial Day recess, but the odds are against any minority member who tries to tackle such a controversial issue.

Barrow sounded confident that the legislation he drafted will stand up to his colleagues’ forthcoming bill, saying it too closely mirrors the Senate’s version. He stated that he does not support the bill.

“It’s not taking us where we need to go,” he said.

He said his bill will secure the borders and limit or eliminate unregulated entrances into the country; secure jobs with mandatory E-Verify; and create measurable tools and reports for Congress to determine whether or not they deem the border secure. In contrast to the Senate bill, amnesty will not be granted to undocumented immigrants until Congress has determined that the border is secure.

Whether or not he gets fellow House members on board, the Blue Dog Democrat has at least one ally in his corner.

Chris Crane, president of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, said Barrow’s words were “music to my ears.”

Crane, who joined Barrow in announcing the legislation, said ICE has been largely excluded from the Senate bill. Barrow’s bill would put a larger focus on border metrics and reports from the field on the state of the U.S.-Mexico border.

“It’s critical to hear what the boots on the ground have to say,” he said. “For some reason, we can’t get folks up here in Washington, DC, to listen to us.”

Barrow could be taking a risk by swimming upstream in a House full of Republicans, but a representative for the congressman said the bill should attract other members—Republican and Democrat alike—who may not support the bipartisan group’s efforts and feel they have nowhere else to go.

So Barrow forges ahead. And maybe once Congress comes back from recess, he won’t be so lonely after all.

Nadya Faulx, Medill News Service

“Syria is not Las Vegas; what happens in Syria will not...

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:50:00 -0400

“Syria is not Las Vegas; what happens in Syria will not stay in Syria.”

-Barak Barfi, Research Fellow, New America Foundation

Barfi testified during the House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence’s hearing on the threat posed to the U.S. by al-Qaida in Iran and Syria on Wednesday morning.

-Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory, Medill News Service

“JAG” actor and G.I. Film Festival Ambassador David...

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:56:16 -0400

“JAG” actor and G.I. Film Festival Ambassador David James Elliott discusses Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in the military during the 7th Annual G.I. Film Festival’s “Celebrating the International Warrior Spirit” reception held May 8, 2013 at the Embassy of Canada.

-Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory, Medill News Service

Lawmakers still no closer to answering questions about insurance premiums

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:07:00 -0400

WASHINGTON - With major provisions of the new health care law set to kick in on Jan. 1, Republicans Monday warned of impending insurance premiums hikes, while Democrats said that was an overreaction, leaving consumers and insurers with no clear answer.

Insurance subsidies, cost-sharing mechanisms and provisions designed to slow the growth of health care costs are housed in the Affordable Care Act, but how they work together remains to be seen, and a House subcommittee’s investigative hearing Monday came no closer to drawing a definitive answer.

“Nearly all of the material the insurers submitted (to this committee) showed that Americans can expect massive premium increases,” said Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. “As one insurer told the committee, consumers in 90 percent of all states would likely face significant premium increases.”

The Affordable Care Act establishes more generous benefits by creating a baseline plan that offers essential health benefits and requiring plans to offer free preventive services.

“Plan generosity may increase due to essential health benefit and actuarial value requirements, thus increasing premiums, but lowering out-of-pocket costs,” said Cori Uccello, a health fellow at the American Academy of Actuaries, in her testimony.

The lists of services health insurance plans must cover include costs for prescription drugs, maternity and newborn care, hospitalization and mental health services.

The preventive care procedures covered are also extensive. They include screenings for blood pressure, cholesterol and HIV, among other things, as well as mammograms and cervical cancer screenings for women.

Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette, the top Democrat on the committee, pointed out that increasing premiums are nothing new, adding that states have started using “rate review tools” aimed at bending health care’s cost curve.

“And I would point out (to) those who are complaining that insurance rates are still rising in some areas,” she said, “need to look at how much they’ve been rising in the last 10 or 15 years in this country.”

Costs could also rise because insurers must accept all applicants now; individuals can no longer be turned away for pre-existing or dropped from their plan when they fall ill. With more sick individuals in the insurance market,the costs of treatment to insurer will increase.

The individual mandate, which requires most Americans to have insurance or pay a penalty, and tax credits for insurance premiums “provide incentives for individuals in good health to obtain coverage, mitigating premium increases due to guaranteed (coverage),” Uccello said.

The tax credits are available to those who shop for insurance in the new state-based exchanges, which open for enrollment on Oct. 1. Individuals and families with household incomes of up to 400 percent of the federal poverty line are eligible.

The law also establishes a definition of what constitutes “affordable” — most households will not pay more than 9.5 percent of their income toward their insurance premium.

But a little-known regulation could blunt the intentions of this provision: employers are allowed to provide coverage at an “affordable rate” to only its employees but could offer coverage to families at higher rates.

“It is based on employee-only coverage,” said Elise Gould, a health care economist at the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “It says nothing about what it means to offer an affordable family health-insurance policy.”

Employers already often offer health insurance to employees’ families as well as their workers. So it is unlikely businesses will start taking families off their plans, she said.

“So if we move into a world where there is this affordability standard,” Gould said, “there’s nothing sort of on economic grounds that would suggest that they would drop family coverage or offer less generous family coverage.”

But if it should happen to an employee, the rest of the family would not be eligible to enter exchanges and receive subsidies to buy coverage there.

- Andrew Hedlund, Medill News Service

A man and woman hold up protest signs inside of Room 2141 of the...

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:37:05 -0400

A man and woman hold up protest signs inside of Room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building before the start of a Wednesday House Committee on the Judiciary oversight hearing at which Attorney General Eric Holder testified.

-Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory, Medill News Service

GOP efforts to repeal 'Obamacare' all politics

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:52:40 -0400

The Republican Party is stuck on a merry-go-round — instead of ponies to go round on, the GOP uses “Obamacare” repeal votes.

Today marks the 37th vote to repeal all or part of President Barack Obama’s health care law. (The Washington Post has an excellent round-up of the first 36 votes.) The vote is now a political exercise in vanity even House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said health care reform is the “law of the land” after Obama won re-election in November.

The Republicans had two real hopes to undo the landmark law: the Supreme Court declaring it unconstitutional or a Mitt Romney presidency with a Republican Congress. Obviously, neither happened.

So the repeal vote now holds one purpose: an explanation of how Washington works — politics often trumps policy.

The politics of this vote, the second of this congressional session, is to give GOP lawmakers running for re-election in 2014 more ammunition to show opponents of the law – generally conservatives – that they are on the right side.

This isn’t the first time Republicans have used this tactic to bolster their standing as staunch Obamacare opponents. Each legislative chamber’s budget proposal this year also serve as examples.

The fiscal plan the GOP-controlled House passed contained significant changes to Medicare that Democrats in the Senate would never accept. Seniors would get their insurance from the private market rather than the current government-sponsored plan a decade from now.

While the White House may not be in a public relations nightmare over the Affordable Care Act, its task is gargantuan, rather than impossible like the GOP’s efforts.

It has another four years to sell the law, which may be easier this time around because tens of millions of people may see its benefits by having insurance.

Several of the law’s selling points though have landed with a loud thud.

First, the small business health insurance tax credit garnered almost a couple hundred thousand users, far short of the estimated 4 million beneficiaries. An insurance exchange aimed at small businesses has been delayed until 2015 in most states.

A measure that said insurance companies must provide rebates if individuals or employers were charged too much mostly went mostly unnoticed by consumers.

While the politics of the health care law can still play out a number of different ways, the White House is guaranteed another chance to sell the public on its benefits. The Republican efforts to repeal the law are now all for naught.

- By Andrew Hedlund, Medill News Service

Scenes from a demonstration outside the White House Wednesday...

Thu, 16 May 2013 00:29:00 -0400

Scenes from a demonstration outside the White House Wednesday commemorating the 65th anniversary of the Nakba, or catastrophe. The day signifies the displacement of over 700,000 Palestinians following Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948. (Nadya Faulx, Medill.)

Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Erdogan visits Washington

Wed, 15 May 2013 15:32:31 -0400

Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Erdogan will meet with President Barack Obama Thursday on the Syrian crisis.

Bordering Syria, Turkey has a major stake in finding a solution to the crisis. Thousands of refugees have fled across the border into Turkey and a bombing in Turkey that killed 50 has been said to have been carried out by Syrian intelligence.

Erdogan visit signifies the U.S. and its allies coordination in finding a political solution in Syria by holding an international conference with Russia in June.

Russia has been supporting the President of Syria, Bashar al Assad’s regime. The Assad regime is said to have been responsible for the more than 80,000 Syiran’s, according to humanitarian organizations.

This past week, Prime Minister of England, David Cameron met with the Obama at the White House where they discussed ways to reach a solution. Leaders from the U.S., England and Israel have met with President of Russia, Vladimir Putin to get him on board for a conference to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria.

David Kashi

Why the IRS scandal might be a good thing for Democrats

Tue, 14 May 2013 16:54:00 -0400

A scandal for the political party in power is almost always bad news. This time could be different for the Democrats, though, because of the force with which President Barack Obama and his allies on Capitol Hill have responded.

Internal Revenue Service workers inappropriately targeted conservative groups who sought to be tax-exempt, particularly those with the words “tea party” or “patriot” in the name. The agency failed to do the same with liberal groups.

Certainly it does not produce good headlines for the White House, but it appears Obama has not been complicit in the enhanced scrutiny for the right-leaning groups. He condemned the IRS’s practices, calling them “outrageous” at a Monday press conference. The Department of Justice opened up a criminal investigation on Tuesday.

These developments have tea party groups and their supporters up in arms. While the movement’s momentum may have largely subsided, this matter could energize stalwarts and spark a new wave of tea party candidates.

This could be a blessing for Democrats. Real Clear Politics shows the party currently leads Republicans by slightly more than three points in a generic congressional vote. Even the conservative polling firm Rasmussen shows a two-point lead for the blue crew. Plus, the tea party’s public image needs a makeover.

Perhaps the most recent numbers, a January Rasmussen poll showed only 8 percent of Americans identify themselves as members of this political movement. While a revival may not necessarily bring as strong a surge as in 2010, it’s still not something Republicans should embrace given the lackluster image of the group.

Conservative activists have nominated several questionable candidates that arguably cost the Republican Party several seats in both the 2010 and 2012 elections, think Sharon Angle in Nevada and Todd Akin in Missouri.

Whether or not anything comes of the Department of Justice’s investigation, Democrats, and particularly those in the Obama administration, can point to this inquiry as proof they have no tolerance for such actions.

The Republican Party might face a conundrum — if no one disagrees with you, who will you fight with?

— Andrew Hedlund, Medill News Service

U.S. schools vs. Shanghai schools

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:56:58 -0400

WASHINGTON - As Congress examines ways our nation’s education system can be reformed, some experts are looking to what other countries are doing to see if those tactics can be used in U.S. schools.

Shanghai was one of the nations researchers focused on in three reports released Tuesday by the Center for American Progress.

The Program for International Student Assessment ranked Shanghai as the world’s highest-performing education system in 2009. This assessment is done every three years and it measures 15-year-old students’ reading, mathematics and science literacy. It’s organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an intergovernmental organization of industrialized countries and is conducted in the United States by the National Center for Education Systems. The 2012 assessment will be released in early December.

One of the reports highlighted that Shanghai has been granted autonomy in recent years. This allows its schools to be more innovative and flexible in areas such as curriculum, teaching and leadership.

For example, Shanghai’s public schools are able to work together and share resources amongst each other, like instructional and assessment plans. Making it a “collaborative profession.”

Another finding was that Shanghai invests largely in its teachers. Like, having a mentoring program for all teachers, not just beginner teachers. This allows teachers to give each other feed-back on how to better their teaching practices.

The level of governance in our schools and who that governance will go to has been a continuing debate.

“Having different layers of administration and different layers of government can quickly make it confusing,” said Ben Jensen, school education program director at the Grattan Institute and author of the “School Turnaround in Shanghai” report. This makes it hard for teachers to focus on what’s really important, he added.

Most experts on the panel at a briefing of the reports proposed more control for state departments and reducing local control in school boards and districts.

But one expert, Chester Finn, Jr., president of the Fordham Institute, reminded audience members that we can’t just take Shanghai’s strategy and implement it into our school systems.

“It’s also important not to assume that we can simply Xerox some other country’s arrangements and that they would work equally the same here.”

-By Brina Monterroza, Medill News Service

Obama: Republican outrage on Benghazi a "sideshow"

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:18:00 -0400

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Monday called Republican outrage over last year’s attack in Benghazi a political “sideshow.”

“We’ve got a whole bunch of people in the State Department who consistently say, ‘You know what, I’m willing to step up, I’m willing to put myself in harm’s way because I think that this mission is important in terms of serving the United States and advancing our interests around the globe.’ And so we dishonor them when we turn things like this into a political circus,” Obama said.

Republicans are accusing the Obama administration of covering up the aftermath of the attack last year that left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

During a House committee hearing last week, internal e-mails showed that top officials scrubbed any mention of al-Qa’ida from talking points given to members of Congress, including United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice.

These talking points are the crux of the ongoing battle between the administration and Republicans, who say that officials knew the attacks were terrorism-related, and not related to a documentary on Islam, as Rice initially reported.

Obama made the remarks in a White House news conference alongside British Prime Minister David Cameron, who is visiting the U.S.

-Mariam Khan, Medill News Service

On Monday, the Newseum hosted a solemn rededication ceremony at...

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:54:00 -0400

On Monday, the Newseum hosted a solemn rededication ceremony at the Newseum Journalists Memorial to commemorate addition of 88 new names to the memorial’s roster. 82 of the names belong to members of the press who lost their lives on the job in 2012, and the other six belong to individuals who lost their lives while reporting in prior years, but who weren’t previously included in the memorial.

-Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory, Medill News Service

A churchgoer closes his eyes in prayer during Tuesday’s...

Fri, 10 May 2013 12:19:02 -0400

A churchgoer closes his eyes in prayer during Tuesday’s Blue Mass, an annual event hosted by St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Washington to honor the service and sacrifice of law-enforcement officers and firefighters.

-Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory, Medill News Service

Actor David James Elliott (of “JAG” fame) has a...

Fri, 10 May 2013 01:44:00 -0400

Actor David James Elliott (of “JAG” fame) has a goofy interview moment with Staff Sgt. (Ret.) John Masters during the 7th Annual G.I. Film Festival’s ”Celebrating the International Warrior Spirit” event at the Embassy of Canada on Wednesday.

-Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory, Medill News Service

Opposition for oppositions' sake

Thu, 09 May 2013 17:14:00 -0400

President Barack Obama begins another jobs tour this week. On this trip he is highlighting new efforts to boost advanced manufacturing in the country, according to reports from The Washington Post and The New York Times.

The trip stems from a new executive order the president issued mandating more transparency and better data-sharing between government and the private sector. The order is targeted at helping entrepreneurs and small business owners. The president will also push for a one-time $1 billion payment to establish Institutes for Manufacturing Innovation. The institutes would be a collaborative effort of governments and businesses aimed at making the country’s manufacturing sector competitive at a global level. The establishment of such organizations may have a slim-to-none chance of becoming reality.

As The Times’ Michael Shear reports, the GOP has been “cool to the idea,” and not in the cool-awesome way. Republicans have not exactly been negotiable parties though. The three big bipartisan deals — a 2010 deal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts, a deal to raise the debt ceiling in August 2011 and the recent fiscal cliff deal — only came about because Washington was in crisis mode.

It’s possible, some may argue, to draw comparisons between the Republicans of today and the Democrats from the years of George W. Bush. Democrats won control of Congress in 2006 by opposing an unpopular president and his policies. Republicans won the House of Representatives in 2010 because they ran against a semi-unpopular president and his controversial health care law.

But the American Enterprise Institute’s Norm Ornstein doesn’t think that the comparison is apt.

Because Bush assumed the presidency under poor circumstances — Bush v. Gore and hanging chads, anyone? — Democrats could have opposed his initiatives, but instead they provided crucial votes for Bush’s education reform legislation as well as what have been dubbed the “Bush tax cuts,” he said.

Ornstein said that the GOP opposition to Obama is “strategic as well as tribal.”

“I think that’s not just a feeling or an impression, it’s pretty obvious if you look at the policies,” he said.

It’s not just apparent in policies or rhetoric though. The Senate has ground to a halt thanks to the arcane procedural hurdle known as the filibuster — which requires a supermajority of 60 votes, rather than a simple majority, to proceed. The Century Foundation, which describes itself as a progressive nonpartisan think tank, provides a handy little graph showing the rapid rise of such maneuvers.

It should be noted that the Democrats are not blameless in the process. They held the record for filibusters from the 1995-96 Congress until the 2009-10 Congress, which the GOP set a new high.The Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority for some of that session, but either way, the Republicans forced Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to file about 140 cloture motions.

There is probably no end in sight. Because Republicans are set against “Obamacare” and Democrats are determined to protect it, there will be plenty of filibustering on health care alone.

— By Andrew Hedlund, Medill News Service

Congress holds first hearing on Boston Marathon bombings

Thu, 09 May 2013 10:16:02 -0400

WASHINGTON — “See something, say something” was the theme of the first hearing on the Boston bombings held by the House Committee on Homeland Security Thursday.

Former Sen. Joseph Lieberman called on leaders and members of Muslim-American communities to better serve the U.S. by “identifying early stages of radicalization.”

Lieberman argued that the Boston Marathon victims might have been spared if the leaders of the Boston mosque that expelled suspected bomber Tamerlan Tzarnaev for his extremism had said something to the police or done something to counter his radicalism.

“The cost of silence, as we learned again on April 15, can be enormous,” said Lieberman, who urged Congress and the Executive Branch to continue “post mortem investigations” of the bombing.

Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis agreed with the need to better communicate with the law enforcement.

“We need to explain to the community that they have a responsibility to their community and their nation to report the activity of those brothers before the bombing,” Davis said.

The bombing will be a learning experience for Boston, he said. “Everything we did has to be reviewed so that we make sure this doesn’t happen again,” said Davis.

Kurt Schwartz, Undersecretary for Homeland Security and director of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, said Boston was as ready as it could have been.

“On April 15, the public safety community was prepared,” Schwartz said. He noted that on race day, an 80-person team was ready and waiting at the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency. Boston’s police, fire and EMS representatives, as well as public safety personnel from the other seven cities and towns along the 26.2 mile course were also present.

“The response by the public in the moments after the blast was incredible,” Schwartz said. “And the public safety response was equally incredible.”

Commissioner Davis concluded his remarks with a familiar message about the bombers: “They had no effect on the city of Boston except for making us stronger.”

South Korean president: Nuclear-armed North Korea will not be tolerated

Wed, 08 May 2013 12:52:48 -0400

WASHINGTON — South Korea President Park Geun-hye brought her tough talk to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, declaring her nation would not tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea.

Any violent intent from her northern neighbor would be “met decisively,” Park said.

She took efforts, though, to note that her nation wants peaceful resolution to the current tensions. “I will remain steadfast in pushing forward a process of trust-building on the Korean Peninsula,” Park told House and Senate lawmakers.

It’s the second day of Park’s visit to the United States. On Tuesday, she met with President Barack Obama and the two stood strongly together in the face of new threats from North Korea.

“Following on our meeting yesterday, President Obama and I adopted a joint declaration,” said Park. “We are determined to embark on another shared journey toward peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

Park said she believes trust will win out.

“And with the trust that gradually builds up, through exchange, through cooperation, we will cement the grounds for durable peace and eventually peaceful reunification,” said Park.

Park went on to say that Korea’s economy is stable and Asia suffers from disconnect between growing economic interdependence and national security cooperation.

The alliance between South Korea and the U.S. will help face these challenges, she said.

“We are expanding cooperation on global issues like counter-terrorism, nuclear non-proliferation and the global financial crisis,” Park said.

The U.S. trade deficit to South Korea in March was $1.3 billion, compared to $551 million a year earlier, according to Bloomberg analysis. Also, the value of U.S. exports to South Korea declined to $3.85 billion from $4.2 billion last year.

The U.S. and South Korea have a free trade agreement that went into effect just 14 months ago.

“Our economic partnership must also aim higher and reach further into the future,” said Park. “Our chorus of freedom and peace, of future and hope, has not ceased to resonate over the last 60 years and will not cease to go on.”

— John Burfisher, Medill News Service

"Until the aftermath of Benghazi, I loved every day of my job."

Wed, 08 May 2013 12:48:00 -0400

“Until the aftermath of Benghazi, I loved every day of my job.”

- Benghazi Witness who testified Wednesday at the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform

The rapidly shifting public opinion on gay marriage

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:13:00 -0400

Delaware legalized same-sex marriage Tuesday. Rhode Island did the same late last week. That brings the total number of states permitting such partnerships to 11.

Just under a decade ago, in the 2004 elections, 11 states put gay marriage ban propositions on the ballot. All 11 of them passed. But, oh, how times change.

Maryland, Minnesota and Maine all passed ballot propositions allowing gay marriage in the last year. Minnesota rejected a ban on gay marriage.

At the federal level, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases regarding the wedge issue — one on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act and the other a challenge to California’s ban on gay marriage — in what already promises to be a blockbuster Supreme Court session.

The sitting president supports marriage equality, and filed a brief with the Supreme Court calling for the nine justices to rule California’s law unconstitutional, but stopped short of asking the court to declare same-sex marriage a constitutional right.

The about-face of public opinion on this issue has been almost overnight. In looking for empirical data, we need to look no further than Gallup. The polling firm keeps a list of all the questions it has asked regarding marriage over the years. Interracial marriage and the social taboos that once surrounded it are somewhat akin to the controversy surrounding gay marriage.

The numbers show that when asked about marriage between a black person and a white person, it took until the early 1990s to get even a simple plurality and until 1997 to get a majority. (Note: Several years lapsed between the asking of these questions.)

What’s more, this social issue that was once a core conservative cause has almost faded from view; this is rooted in one simple reason: younger voters overwhelming support the right to marriage, regardless of sexual orientation.

If the Republican Party cares to evolve with the electorate, gay marriage needs to become a non-issue with their base, as 18- to 29-year-old voters constituted for 19 percent in November’s election, meaning this age group had a larger turnout than the 65-and-over age group.

A poll conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News showed that 70 percent of 18- to 39-year-olds favors legalizing same-sex marriage. This is the precise group that Republicans need to win over to avoid future losses.

- By Andrew Hedlund, Medill News Service

OFA volunteers lobby Sen. Mark Warner on immigration bill

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:10:00 -0400

On Tuesday morning, a group of five volunteers with Organizing for Action met with a representative from the office of Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) in support of the immigration reform bill currently working its way through the Senate.

The group’s coordinator, Marilyn Karp, a resident of Virginia’s Prince William County, is a Neighborhood Team Leader with OFA, which means she’s tasked with coordinating local volunteer activities in support of President Obama’s agenda. Ms. Karp said that because of her position with the organization, OFA asked her to put together a lobby day on behalf of the bill. Ms. Karp used the OFA website and her personal network to recruit volunteers.

Karp, who is now retired, said she formerly served as a Vice-President at Merrill Lynch, as well as running her own business. She said the current version of the immigration bill was “far from perfect,” but that its passage would provide a framework that could be improved upon later.

“I think my immigrant grandparents would be proud of me,” Karp said in explaining her support for the legislation.

Karp told her fellow volunteers that they should relate their support for the bill to their personal stories, advice that made sense to Peter Boyce, a D.C. resident and president of a consulting firm focused on political and issue-based campaigns. Boyce effusively shared the details of his biography. He said he emigrated from Barbados in the 1984 and became a U.S. citizen two years later. His mother spent years as a garment worker in New York City. He has five children, three of whom currently attend Ivy League schools. Boyce’s wife, born in China, became a U.S. citizen in time to vote in the 2012 elections.

Boyce said he wished the Senate bill’s 13-year path to citizenship was shorter, and that the legislation provided more access to health care for those in line. (For example, some analyses suggest the bill’s current version would force many previously undocumented immigrants to wait for a decade or more before gaining full access to programs like Medicaid.)

Even so, he said the bill presented “a ray of hope” to individuals currently living “in the shadows.”

Three other volunteers were also present, including Virginia residents Sonia Lozano of Manassas and Kathy McCann of McLean. Lozano is an employee with the Laborer’s International Union, and McCann said she had retired after spending 25 years with the World Bank.

The group’s meeting with Warner’s staffer was closed to the press, but the participants said they were told the Senator supported the underlying core of the legislation. They left the conference room in an enthusiastic mood, with Boyce telling Warner’s staffer that the volunteers were eager to work for the Senator’s re-election.

Before the meeting, Karp said that small groups of activists weren’t sufficient to effectively advocate for policy changes, and that a premium had to be placed on increasing the number of individuals involved in such efforts. Even so, she portrayed the day’s activity as a success. On the way out, Karp said that what the volunteers had heard in the meeting wasn’t as important as the fact that the members of the group, several of whom had met for the first time, now knew each other.

“That’s how you build a grassroots movement,” she said.

- John V. Santore, Medill News Service