As we all have discovered, the political process is complex and slow and the wheels of government are even slower. That being said, our efforts with HR 4969 have had measures of success; we had hoped to obtain 30 cosponsors for the Bill and actually ended up with more than 70 cosponsors. ARRL’s advocacy is once again being recognized and

finding support in the halls of Congress.

 

It took us a while to line up an original minority cosponsor so that a truly bipartisan bill could be introduced. Even so, we were able to amass an exceptional and surprising level of support for the Bill.

 

This will give us a big head start in the 114th Congress in January, and we have in mind reassembling many of the cosponsors that we had for H.R. 4969. That will give us the opportunity to obtain a much larger number of cosponsors for the new Bill.

 

We were well aware that there was likely not enough time to pass H.R. 4969 in the 113th Congress, but it was urgent to begin the process and amass the largest showing of support for the good work of Amateur Radio operators that we could, so as to build momentum for the continuation of the process in the 114th Congress. So far, we are way ahead of where we had hoped to be at this time.

 

Many thanks to all of you who wrote, called, and visited your Congressional Representatives as we began our travel in the maze of representative government; your efforts have not gone unnoticed, and have built a strong foundation for the next phase.

 

 

 

Thank you and 73,

 

Bob Vallio, W6RGG

 

Director, Pacific Division