Joyce is the Executive Director of Raising Special Kids (http://www.raisingspecialkids.org) and the most diplomatic, professionally nonpartisan community leader with whom I've ever had the privilege of working. Joyce, like me, is the mother of a son with Autism Spectrum Disorder so she truly understands life in the trenches raising a child with special needs; been there, done that and has the tee shirt. Unlike me, Joyce has an amazing poker face. I never want to play Texas Hold'em or even Liar's Poker with Joyce. She can sit in a meeting listening to stuff that makes my blood boil and remain completely composed, find common ground and work to fashion productive solutions to very complex public policy challenges while smoke is coming from my ears, my lips are zipped and I'm sitting on my hands so I don't choke anyone. It is then that I remind myself to watch Joyce and follow her lead if she's there or I ask myself WWJMHD?
Yesterday's seminar was all about how nonprofits that work with those Arizonans who currently aren't actively involved in shaping public policy can empower their constituents to stand and be counted first by voting and second by expressing their opinions to AZ Public Policymakers after establishing themselves as active voting citizens. While we'd all like to believe that political campaign donations don't influence Public Policymaking, reality remains that organized and empowered grassroots voter participation is the only way to compete with big dollar campaign finance. Organized grassroots citizen empowerment is even more important after Tuesday's US Supreme Court decision in McCutcheon v. FEC (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-536_e1pf.pdf) striking down any aggregate limit for an individual's campaign contributions to multiple candidates.
"Right now, you know, it's about 150,000 Americans who are the relevant funders of congressional campaigns. That's about one-twentieth of 1 percent of America. And after this decision that number's going to fall even more, you know. So 150,000 is about the same number of people who are named Lester in the United States. You know, if it falls to about 40,000 relevant funders, that's about the same number of people as are named Sheldon."
Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig
LESSIG10:22:33
Last night I shared my serendipity with a fellow AZ Autism Coalition Board Member who commented that WWJMHD would make for a long bracelet saying and thus was born a new Public Awareness Campaign for the AZ Autism Coalition. 350 bracelets will be arriving in a few weeks. Some will be shared with the 2014 Partners in Policymaking class (http://www.pilotparents.org/ppsa/ProgramsandServices/PartnersinPolicymaking.aspx) during their May session when they tour the AZ Capitol. PIP is an amazing advocacy training program for adults with developmental disabilities and the parents of children with developmental disabilities. I am a proud member of the 2005 PIP graduating class. PIP allowed me to make immediate connections within the AZ Developmental Disability Community that would have taken me a decade to establish on my own. Plus I learned additional advocacy skills even though I spent four years working in the NYS Senate, clerked for a NYS Agency and spent a decade navigating the NYS Family Court social service delivery systems for my clients. Things here in AZ work a bit differently than NY or NC or TX!
The rest of the bracelets will be shared with AZ Autism Coalition members including Raising Special Kids and other community partners including PAFCO. As the AZ Autism Coalition launches our Building An Integrated Community Together campaign we want to remind ourselves that when in doubt about how to achieve our mission we need to ask ourselves WWJMHD.
The next decade is critical for the AZ Autism Community. 1 in 64 AZ fourteen year olds is diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and our education, medical and social service delivery systems just are not prepared to meet this challenge. These children are the beginning of a tsunami and unless there is significant change in AZ Public Policy our service delivery systems will collapse trying to meet their needs and the needs of everyone in AZ (including their families and the professionals who provide services to them) affected by ASD. As we Build An Integrated Community Together solving complex Public Policy challenges along the way we of the AZ Autism Coalition will be following the example set by one classy dame; our community leader Joyce Millard Hoie.
No comments:
Post a Comment