American Agri-Women

AAW Urges Members to Contact Senators About Health Care Legislation

Dear AAW Members:

As you are no doubt aware, there will be a vote tomorrow in the U.S. Senate on whether to proceed with debate on health care legislation. 60 votes are required to invoke cloture and proceed.
According to a new Congressional Research Service report, since 1999 the Senate has approved 97.6 percent of all bills when lawmakers first voted to begin debate.
Under Senate rules, debate on a bill cannot begin unless there is a motion to do so. Unless all 100 Members agree to begin debate, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) must first file for cloture on the motion to move to the bill — a vote that requires at least 60 votes. This vote is expected tomorrow evening.
If this passes, health care legislation will require only 51 votes to pass, and it will pass. Whether there are 60 votes for cloture is the question. A few Democrats are considered possible no votes and those include our new Agriculture Committee Chair Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

Senate offices will be closed tomorrow, so if you want to contact your senators, you may do so today at their numbers or the switchboard 202-224-3121. The switchboard number is often busy, so you may look up the number at the AAW website: http://americanagriwomen.org. Go to the Legislation drop down menu and choose Grassroots Advocacy Center. Once you sign in as a new or returning member, it will give you the list of your congressional delegation and you can click on Profile for their contact information. A full list of senate phone numbers is attached.

AAW's position on health care is:

AAW supports the concept that citizens of the United Satates should have access to the best medical service available. We believe this is best delivered by private enterprise. Any legislation should reflect that view.

The $848 billion, 2074-page Senate bill is posted online along with a section-by-section analysis and other resources on Senator Lincoln's website at: http://lincoln.senate.gov/arkansas/healthcare.cfm.

Other resources and analyses are available at http://heritage.org.

We are providing information to you should you wish to contact senators and urge them to vote yea or nay.