NATIONAL AND STATE LEVEL PERSPECTIVES

What I am going to say is that to work legislation properly, one needs to be alert and in touch every day. One must have email and web access, and these tools must be used regularly. Without email and web access, one is operating in the dark ages.

That said, let me give our worthy leaders some suggestions.

The most important task we (MOAA) have is to influence public policy. Our combined efforts protect the earned benefits of our members, all who wear or have worn the uniforms of our seven uniformed services, their families and survivors. This effort must be across the board, regardless of rank or branch of service or status, regular, reserve and guard.

The process is much too difficult to attempt to work all issues and all constituencies alone. We must work in concert with others, whether they be other Veterans organizations, our own members, our legislative advocates and those volunteers whom we trust. None of us can stay on top of all the issues alone.

Let’s start with National issues worked by our US Congress.

MOAA has the most trusted and expert lobbyists in Washington DC on our own staff in Alexandria. We must rely on their advice and recommendations and work the issues they ask us to track and attack. Use the MOAA email and web site.

Every one of us should be receiving the email messages from MOAA. Go to MOAA.org and explore the constantly changing web site. It is not your grandfather’s web site. It is bright and refreshing and constantly changing.

Bob Burke pioneered the use of blogs on our own Council cal-moaa.org web site. Warren Enos has stressed and mastered that comm link and together they have earned the Best In MOAA web site award for two consecutive years. MOAA has followed our Council’s lead and has a half-dozen blogs - spouses, reserves, headquarters, military money matters, message center, community standards and a humorous one called “stand up for the troops.”

Look for the MOAA Legislative Goals, Fact Sheets on the significant issues, Resources, Key Bills, and a link to thomas.loc so you can read the text and the latest status on any bill or resolution.

There are so many well-meaning but trivial bills offered that one must separate the wheat from the chaff. Rely on the MOAA Government Affairs staff to do that for us. It is impossible to work all issues. Steve Strobridge and his staff brief the Board of Directors and together we agree on the issues to take to the annual Storming the Hill effort in April each year.

During the year, the situation may change and worthy proposals that support our major goals are elevated and listed on the web site. I counted 41 today that are bills deserving of our support. That is a nice wish list but again, only a few will make it to the floor of the House or Senate for a vote. Compromises are always being effected.

Our staff does not work alone. MOAA is a key member of the Military Coalition, a group of 35 Veterans organizations representing 5.5M Veterans who work together and collaborate on key legislative goals. Check their web site at http://www.themilitarycoalition.org.

Sign up for the weekly email legislative update and the action alerts. It is not enough to just get these notices and file them or read them. We all need to act on them.

There is strength in numbers. MOAA is 370,000 strong but we need to keep our numbers up and replace those who are passing away. We need to use our spouses and prepare them to be Auxiliary Members. Their experience as our mates is invaluable and they are our replacements on the legislative and chapter leadership front lines.

To complete the picture, we need to know our elected members in the House and Senate. Our Chapter leaders should be on a first name basis with our Representatives and their local district staff members. Invite them to speak, visit them in their offices, send copies of your
correspondence to your Washington Representative to your district staff members as well.

Let’s talk about the State level for a bit.

In California, our Council is a member of the Cal State Commanders Veterans Council (CSCVC), a group of 20 Veterans organizations who are loosely organized to cooperate on legislative issues. The CSCVC web site is at http://www.califveterans.com/ and is maintained by CDR Bill Manes, USN (Ret). Bill is also the Legislative Officer for the VFW and keeps this worthy web site current. You can go there and read a summary of the legislation that is considered important.

The CSCVC has a legislative advocate who is LTC Pete Conaty, USA (Ret). His firm is the Legislative Advocate for several Veterans Groups, most important is the County Veterans Service Officers (CVSOs). CAL-MOAA contributes $1000 annually to the CSCVC for Pete Conaty and Associates to pass on alerts on legislation of significance. Pete and his partner, Dana Nichol, are worth their weight in gold.

They feed their alerts to CAL-MOAA and Warren posts them on our Council web site and sends them to the eight State Directors and key officers who comprise our Council Executive Committee. Hopefully, these leaders funnel the information to their chapter presidents and others, perhaps newsletter editors and chapter legislative officers.

Our job is to take action when Pete or Dana advise us of a particular bill that needs our support. A letter or email to the sponsoring legislator or to the Committee Chair is a good practice to follow.

The never-ending dream of military retirees in California is to have military retired pay exempted from State Income Tax. This is indeed a dream and should never be abandoned. Realistically, however, It is hardly possible in this era of deficit budgets and a lop-sided one-party Senate and Assembly.

Each Chapter should be in touch with local Assembly Members and State Senators. Invite them to speak at your meetings. Work them in conjunction with your County Veterans Service Officers, Pete and Dana are the Legislative Advocates for the CVSOs.

Know your local Guard and Reserve unit leaders. Invite them to speak. Attend their functions, sign them up as MOAA members. Remember, MOAA Membership is complimentary to all active duty officers - regular, guard and reserve, so pass out those yellow membership blanks and sign them up.

Know how to access our Assembly and Senate to review key legislation. Go to http://www.ca.gov/ and explore.

Go to the California Dept of Veterans Affairs, http://www.cdva.ca.gov/ and learn how to navigate that web site. Read about Secretary Tom Johnson’s struggle to operate the Yountville, Barstow and Chula Vista Veterans Homes and bring on line five new homes with a ten-percent cut in his department’s budget. Do what you can do to effect the construction and completion of these five homes.

Work the construction and expansion of the services of the US Dept of Veterans Affairs, including out-patient care, expanded medical clinics, transportation of Veterans to the nearest VA medical facility.

Take a look at our State Adjutant General and the CA National Guard. California has been the only State with no educational benefits for our State Guard. That is being worked in this session and needs our support.

These suggestions just scratch the surface of possibilities.

Be sure to have a legislative column in your newsletter and have your Chapter Legislative rep stand up and deliver a quick short summary of what is most important and needs a push by our members.

One piece of legislation I am following is HR 3997. This is an expansion of Rep Susan Davis HR 551 which would correct some deficiencies in the CalVet Home Loan Program, namely opening it up to Veterans who came in the service after 1 Jan 1977. Loans financed by Qualified Veterans Mortgage Bonds are not available to most of today’s California Veterans. This Bill has been back and forth from the House to the Senate, amended in both bodies, passed by the Senate and sent back to the House and has gone nowhere since 20 Dec 2007. It is too important to let it die. If each of us would ask our Representative to get it moving, it can be done.

In summary, examine the moaa.org web site and get familiar with the tools that make it easy to make your opinions known. Know how to access your own Representatives web site and how to communicate with him/her.Do the same with our ca.gov and go to the Senate and Assembly web sites and visit your own elected Assembly member and Senator’s web sites. Use the califveterans.com web site for State legislation research. Get to know your electeds and their staffs and you will find they are just like us - putting our pants on one leg at a time. (Some may do it faster if they are not dressing at home).

Thanks for reading this far. Let me know if you have a specific question and I will attempt to assist you.

Bill Gavitt
Legislative Chair

William F. Gavitt, Col, USAF (Ret)
Member, Board of Directors
Military Officers Association of America (MOAA)
7007 Seville Way
Riverside, CA 92504-4832

MoaaMan@aol.com
951-780-3978 Home
951-206-3939 Mobile

Comments RSS