Supporters of the Parental Rights Amendment are starting the new year with some exciting news: 5 more congressmen are now cosponsors of HJRes. 50 proposing the Amendment in the U.S. House. This brings to 70 the number of cosponsors on the resolution.
I had been out of the office for the holidays, so coming back to discover these additions was like finding one last Christmas present waiting on my desk – a present for all of us!
This jump in sponsorship is the largest since we concluded a major nationwide call blitz last July. The number had climbed only slowly since, but lunged upward in the waning hours of the 2013 session. All 5 new sponsors were added on December 19, just one day before the House recessed for the year.
Coupled with the fact that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not vote on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, this was a huge victory for parental rights. (The longer the CRPD is delayed, the harder it will be for supporters to pass it in a contentious election year.)
Many of you took time from your busy December schedules to call your congressmen in support of the Amendment and to oppose the treaty, and these developments demonstrate that your calls work.
Thank you for making the effort to make a difference!
The five newest PRA cosponsors include Reps. Ken Calvert (CA-42), John Carter (TX-31), Randy Hultgren (IL-14), Billy Long (MO-7), and Aaron Schock (IL-18). To see if your representative has signed on yet, use the shortcut 4pra.us/House to visit our list online.
This support comes none too soon, as the state of parental rights in America gets more and more precarious every year. Next week, we will launch an email series highlighting the state of your rights entering 2014.
Each issue in the series will highlight a different story of parental rights abuses as featured in one or more videos. Our hope is that the videos will help you talk about the issues with your friends and lawmakers. Videos are also easy to share online or through email.
Ultimately, we believe that with your help this series can generate more citizen concern for parental rights, and even more lawmakers willing to cosponsor the Amendment in Congress.
Thank you for standing with us in 2013. As we celebrate these first victories of 2014, let’s work even harder this year to see children protected through the preservation of parental rights in America! (If you’re not yet signed up as a volunteer, why not do so here?)
Sincerely,
Michael Ramey
Director of Communications & Research
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