Nuclear Disarmament-Let Isakson (GA) and Graham (SC) Know You Want START

Aug 23, 2010

Events

Updated: Georgia WAND also has a blog entry about this!

This month is our last best chance to counter the nuclear spin machine and convince senators to vote YES on the New START Treaty. As you know, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee postponed their vote to September 15th; with recesses and holidays, that leaves only a few weeks to squeeze in a floor vote on New START before the end of 2010.

We’re making progress:
All of you and many other organizations across the country have been doing incredible work this year, and we are seeing progress. In Tennessee activists have built a coalition of religious leaders, and are using the media to pressure Sen. Corker. In Georgia activists have held lobby visits, organized sign-on letters and placed op-eds from former national security leaders and retired generals. And so much more that I don’t have room to list. Fantastic work!

But so is the opposition:
The Heritage Foundation and the tea-party-affiliated Liberty Central have stepped up their work to convince Republicans to oppose this treaty. The good news is, we have won the policy argument hands-down. Unfortunately, their job is easier: create just enough doubt to stall the process until 2011. They are rallying their supporters, so we must work twice as hard to pressure senators to stop playing political games with our security and ratify New START.

What you can do:

Join the national campaign phonebank. We are organizing groups across the country to call voters in target states [Georgia and South Carolina are included] and flood Republican Senate offices with calls. Email CSRA Peace Alliance to join the phonebank effort.
Send an Action Alert to your members or lists asking people to call their senators. Click here for samples.
Do the July 14 action alert from Friends Committee on National Legislation.
Distribute and collect signed postcards to South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.
Distribute and collect signed postcards to Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson.
Call Graham (202 224-5972) and/or Isakson (202 224-3643).
Write a letter to the editor encouraging a speedy ratification of New START. Click here for samples.
Do you have members that are religious leaders, medical professionals, or current or former military leaders? If so, contact the CSRA Peace Alliance to plug into the effort to pressure target senators.
Check the New START Resources page at the Campaign website for other tools and resources, talking points, action postcards and more.