As expected this election year, many bills are getting introduced that require attention. Lawmakers seem to feel they need to establish themselves not by acting on existing laws but by writing new ones. Seldom do they move to repeal something as their first action item. Of course, with Congress, that was reversed this year when the first bill of the new house was to repeal funding for the IRS.
The Government Affairs Team is now well into using the new Legislative review software, and the results are promising. The detail of information on bills is greater, and the quantity of bills that need to be reviewed is increasing. This requires volunteers across the United States to read and analyze the bills. It’s not enough to highlight words of concern. GAT needs to know if the intent of the bill is consistent with what we want from protective or restrictive legislation.
GAT is made up of ordinary nudists like you and me. We each bring our own skill level and expertise to the job of protecting our nudist rights. This is getting harder to do, as precedent doesn’t seem to matter to some judges. We need to keep reviewing and challenging those laws which would negatively affect our ability to use public lands nude or to restrict other activities on private property.
Many of you don’t know who James Montgomery Flagg is; he was the man who came up with the famous Uncle Sam ‘I Want You’ poster. Well, I want you to think about service too. I want you to be our eyes and ears for legislation. We need to expand the number of people who can pick a state and review the bills from that state or group of states to make sure we don’t let any get through without a chance to comment or affect the language that is passed.
I can’t promise I can use all of you, but I need to know who has an eye out there for legislation and can follow through in their local area or assigned states to track the status of these bills throughout the legislative session. I want you to contact me at Tim.Mullins@aanr.com to step up and lend your help to review and track legislation.
Tim Mullins
GAT