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Cancellation of the A-2616 Hearing for October 21, 2004

As of this afternoon, Oct. 19, I have been informed that A-2616 was taken off of Asw. Weinberg's Assembly Health Committee agenda for Thursday's meeting by the Democratic leadership. This means that one or a few Democrats in the Assembly asked the leadership (Assembly Speaker Albio Sires) not to allow this Bill to be heard. If you have written a testimony for Thursday's Hearing you need to write a cover letter explaining how very disappointed you were to learn that Democratic Leadership held this Bill (A-2616) for a hearing and possible vote. You need to send this letter (with your testimony) to Assembly Speaker Albio Sires, to all 11 members of the Assembly Health Committee and your own legislators in your own districts. If they receive hundreds of letters they will be forced to reconsider this kind of tactic in the future. If we do nothing, they will have won this round. We will eventually have this bill passed. It is going to require a lot of elbow grease and persistence-but that is true of any great achievement. I am so glad that so many are interested in Bill A-2616. We will be more effective in the future if we mobilize and organize by District. If you do not know which of the 40 NJ legislative districts you are in you need to go to the http://www.njleg.state.nj.us website or call (800) 792-8630. If you go on the legislative website you will see pictures and biographies of all of the legislators and sometimes that makes it easier to write to them. If you contact me and tell me what district you are in, I can put you in contact with others on my list who are in your district. There is power in numbers.

A-2616 Request for Action [October 5, 2004]

Dear Cherubs,

A-2616:

Asw. Charlotte Vandervalk who sponsored A-2616 (Conscientious Exemption to Vaccinations) has asked that we find sympathetic friends and relatives in the 11 districts that have Assembly Health Committee members and ask them to write to their legislators about co-sponsoring A-2616.

It is anticipated that we will have a hearing or possibly even a voting session on this bill sometime in the fall (soon). Letters arriving to legislators within the next two weeks would be most useful. While anyone who wants to should write to all committee members ( I intend to do so--I am also in District 21-- one of the targeted districts)---CONSTITUIENTS WRITING WHO ACTUALLY LIVE IN THOSE DISTRICTS HAVE MORE INFLUENCE!

However, if you are in Basking Ridge or Franklin Township (Somerset) or any other pocket where many families are having letters rejected, please document what you know about the boondoggle, and send to Asw. Charlotte Vandervalk. She is our advocate on the Health Committee and she needs to know current happenings on this issue.

WHO TO WRITE TO:

Below is a list of the eleven Health Committee Members for the Assembly . Please see if you or friends or relatives are in any of these targeted districts. If you do not know your district, see the http://www.njleg.state.nj.us website. Click on 'find your legislator'. Right now we are focusing only on the Assembly. Once the A-2616 passes the Assembly we will work to have the Senate adopt the version of the bill that gets passed in the Assembly.

WHAT TO WRITE:

Anecdotal stories about relatives, friends, or neighbors who have stories of vaccine injury or stories about having religious exemption letters rejected would be most appropriate. Form letters will not work for this particular effort. If you are looking for vaccination facts or data to include please see any vaccine related website you like. I have plenty of information concisely stated in the WHEREAS' section under Lobbying Efforts on my cherubs.info website.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you in advance for helping to get this legislation passed.

Regards,

Barbara Flynn, C.H.E.R.U.B.S. (908) 273-2792