Of course, being a political junkie, I found out a few
things myself too. For example, there was a news clip, I believe on CNN, where
Jeb Bush commented on how meeting and being educated by a parent with a child
with a significant disability helped him understand and improve Florida state
services to people with developmental disabilities. That story is also part of
his bio. It’s available on his website – https://jeb2016.com/?lang=en.
And lo and behold, five days (11/7/16) later on the Tonight Show with Stephen
Colbert, John Kasich included people with a developmental disabilities in a
list of people government should assist. We are starting to see sign language
interpreters at big events associated with the Clinton and Sanders campaigns. I
am doing research on whether campaigns are captioning their videos.
What do these random points imply? Candidates are going to
invest time and energy in groups who help separate them from the pack. We
represent 56 million – that’s a pretty big group. We also have many friends and
families. However, candidates will not “discover” us unless we engage them and
share our concerns and priorities. In fact, if we were to hold a candidates’
debate on disability issues right now we would probably be seeing 12 or more
“deer-in-the-headlights” expressions. So please take the time to go to town
halls, other events to which candidates come, and to the caucuses (2/1/2016). The Desmoines Register keeps a calendar on candidates' schedules – http://data.desmoinesregister.com/iowa-caucus/candidate-tracker/index.php.
Those of you who live in Iowa are very important to the rest of
us. What you do to elevate issues that are important to people disabilities
will affect the status of these issues in other states. Below is contact
information for the senior person in Iowa for each candidate. Please connect
with the campaigns in which you have a strong interest. Ask them questions and
tell them what is on your mind. Weigh in on the economy, tax reform, the cost
of college, raising the minimum wage, and immigration, entitlement reform and
how their proposals would work or not work for people with disabilities. In
reality we are not a niche group. We are mainstream America! Those of you in
Iowa need to let the candidates know this.
The contact information is below, please use it.
Candidates
|
Iowa State Director
|
E-mail address
|
Twitter
|
Bush (R)
|
Annie Kelly
|
@annie_kelly
|
|
Carson (R)
|
Ryan Rhodes
|
@RyanRhodes
|
|
Christie (R)
|
Phil Valenziano
|
@PhilValenziano
|
|
Clinton (D)
|
Matt Paul
|
@MattPaulIA
|
|
Cruz (R)
|
Bryan English
|
@be_iowa
|
|
Fiorina (R)
|
Chris Rants
|
@c_rants
|
|
Graham (R)
|
Tracie Gibler
|
|
@traciegibler
|
Huckabee (R)
|
Sarah Huckabee Sanders
|
@SarahHuckabee
|
|
Jindal (R)
|
Matt Horihan
|
@matthorihan
|
|
Kasich (R)
|
Cory Crowley
|
||
O’Malley (D)
|
Jake Oeth
|
@jakeoeth
|
|
Patacki (R)
|
No information found.
|
||
Paul (R)
|
Steve Grubbs
|
@sgrubbs
|
|
Rubio (R)
|
Jack Whitver
|
@jackwhitver
|
|
Sanders (D)
|
Robert Becker
|
@rbecker51
|
|
Santorum (R)
|
Walt Rogers
|
|
@waltrogersforia
|
Trump (R)
|
Chuck Laudner
|
||
Thank you.
Common Grounder
thanks for the info pat!
ReplyDeletebr,
ktajog