Safe Chemicals Act – Blog Post 4

In order to pursue my issue, I need to convince my senators to back the Safe Chemicals Act of 2011. The main resource I've been using is the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families website, which is a preexisting group lobbying for the bill. It describes itself as "an nationwide effort to pass smart federal policies that protect us from toxic chemicals." The website has various ways to get involved in the campaign. My first step as a citizen lobbyist was to join the site. Now, I receive their update emails. I also have participated in various ways they are advocating for the Safe Chemicals Act of 2011:

• They ask people to send an email to their state legislators about the act. Their website has an interface to make the sending of these emails easy. However, the email is not personalized. Instead, it relies on the celebrity status of Jessica Alba, who has become the face of the campaign. I still feel that this effort is a good idea if it attracts high enough numbers. In addition to participating, I am going to ask others to also fill out the form, using Facebook.
  
  

• In a similar, and more personal, effort, Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families asked its members to upload a holiday family photo, along with a brief message to senators about why toxic chemical control is important to us. I joined this effort as well, uploading a photo of myself with my little brother and the message "I want my little brother to be safe from harmful chemicals! Please cosponsor the Safe Chemicals Act of 2011. Happy holidays." Although this action is much more personal than the letter, a single person's actions do not mean much. I plan to ask friends to also send in photos.
  
  

I also plan to call my senators about the act, and leave a message asking them to cosponsor the legislation. I will ask my friends to do the same, and have written a sample script to make the process easier. I wrote one of these scripts for a call to Bob Casey, and one for a call to Pat Toomey. I tried to use my previous research into the senators' interests and values to inform the writing of my script.

Generally, I am focusing on getting many people to participate in the emails, holiday cards, and phone calls. Because I cannot vote yet, I doubt that even a strong message coming solely from me would have much impact. However, a large number of people always have more influence than just one.