Our Stories
Hike the Hill 2015 – Day 3 Update
Today’s focus was on the Senate side. If you imagine the U.S. Capitol from the Mall, facing north, the Senate is on the left and the House on the right. The respective office buildings (Rayburn, Cannon, Longworth for the House , and Russell, Dirksen and Hart for the Senate) are located on either side of the Capitol; and the prudent lobbyist schedules visits on one side or the other to avoid a whole lot MORE walking that is already occurring. Hiking shoes are a real blessing…
Anyway, on the Senate side I’ve met with Senators Klobuchar (MN), Heitkamp and Hoeven (ND), Baldwin (WI), Stabenow and Peters (MI), Portman and Brown (OH), Gillibrand (NY) and Leahy and Sanders (VT). We’re trying hard to find a Republican Senator to join the 8 other co-sponsors for S. 403, who are all Democrats. This is such an easy, across-the-aisle win and it would really send the right message of we could get some Republicans on board. However, among our 8 NCNST states there are only 4 Republican Senators!
We’re focused on Ohio Senator Portman, who had championed various conservation, National Parks and trail initiatives in the past. He’s proven not to be an ideologue; and he’s on the Senate’s Energy & Natural Resources Committee, which ultimately needs to report this bill out to the Senate floor for a vote. We’re told by his staff today that his priority is another bill dealing with National Parks funding and he won’t be co-sponsoring anything else until he gets that bill introduced. Perhaps our Ohio membership can help persuade him that its in Ohio’s best interest to co-sponsor S. 403 now!
We’ve also approached North Dakota Senator Hoeven. My meeting today was surprisingly receptive; as a result I’m hopeful we might get Hoeven on board. Any outreach our North Dakota members of the Red Plaid Nation can make will be very helpful!
We’ve also been told (but I have yet to confirm) that Wisconsin Senator Johnson may be looking for bipartisan opportunities, and is interested in supporting a trails agenda. So, we’re needing that same outreach to Senator Johnson; we’ll be following up with his staff.
More soon!