Hi Nozdam,
There are few outstanding members in this thread who have contributed more than the rest of us put together, and you are one of those distinguished ones. The loss is very painful given everything you personally and everyone else have done. But let's look at it this way: This was our trial lobbying
This certainly was the first time that I called, emailed, faxed any lawmakers to ask for support or opposition on anything and this certainly isn't the last.
The reason I am calling it "trial" because we have learned few things from it, few things that worked and few that didn't. We did most of the things right, with few exceptions. One of the things that can and should be improved in my humble opinion is how we faxed the lawmakers. Sending the same fax content from mutiple senders and also resending the same thing several times probably wasn't as effective as we hoped it to be. I certainly am not undermining anyone's effort by sending the faxes, but after a congressman or senator has received the same fax over and over again, eventually the staff members will start to ignore them and label them "one of those faxes again". But if each of us have our own fax content, then the reader may will have atleast some level of interest in reading it, rather than throwing it in the pile after reading the same first line. Just as much there is value in volume of faxes they receive, there is also value in how much the fax moves the reader and compells him/her do something about it. We all have our personal stories to tell and how we are affected. Let's tell those to the lawmakers. While every story will be unique, there are some underlying reasonings that will be common, such as the mutual benefits for immigrants and the U.S. economy, the relief from hardship, etc. I have sent my personalized messages hat I wrote up from scrap and sent it via email to the lawmakers and I would gladly share them if needed.
Also, we will start calling the senators and congressmen early in the game. And as others have proposed, we will meet with them in person and will provide statistics and personal stories. But best of all, in our next fight, we will not be a bunch of strangers in a newsforum wondering how things are going. You know we already are a formidable force to reckon with when the staff members ask if it is about immigration we are calling about before we say anything
This time we know what to do, when to do it and how to do it and we will succeed!!
