WASHINGTON – Voting rights, education, health care, economic uplift and criminal justice reform are key legislative policy issues that the public should support as a new Congress is seated in January, according to speakers and panelists at the legislative and policy conference hosted by the National Action Network.
The two-day gathering at the Russell Senate Office Building, which began on the first day that Congress reconvened following the national midterm, is the first such event by a national civil rights group post-election. A laundry list of senators and representatives – Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Benjamin Cardin, Frederica Wilson and Joyce Beatty, to name a few – are scheduled to take up issues of education, immigration, homeland security and the first 100 days of the 116th Congress on Wednesday.
Organizers and guest speakers called on the more than 300 attendees Tuesday morning to follow up voting with support for policy initiatives on the horizon that help their communities. Attendees also were urged to visit the offices of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle – time was built into the conference schedule to do so – to let them know the policy matters and legislative initiatives that are important to the public, and to hold them accountable when it’s time to vote on legislation.
“Our determination is that we want senators and members of Congress to lay out where they see us going in the next 100 days,” the Rev. Al Sharpton, founder and president of NAN, told the gathering. “We cannot keep telling people in our communities to come out and vote and we don’t know the agenda and what is going to be accomplished. All this beltway politics does not work on Main Street or Martin Luther King Boulevard.”
A number of lawmakers spoke about legislation and policy initiatives they consider key, including representatives Al Green and James Clyburn and senators Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Mark Warner.
“You all are right on time,” Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C. told a packed room in opening remarks. “You are in time for members of Congress to hear your advice and your counsel and your advocacy.”
Norton said she believes the incoming Congress will be the one that finally helps the District of Columbia gain statehood, and her a vote on the House floor on behalf of its 700,000 residents. She urged attendees to be vocal and active in promoting policies and holding lawmakers accountable, sounding a common theme.
