Dear Friends,
As the new Congress opened this year, with liberals in control of both the House and Senate, we knew things would be bad—and we were right. The Democratic majority, as well as some Republicans, seemed intent on calling up anti-family and immoral legislation faster than we could stop them.
Let me give you an example: The Democrats introduced what they called an“ethics reform” bill that would effectively muzzle organizations like ours, which try to inform you about what your elected officials are doing. Many senators and congressmen simply don’t like to be bothered by constituents calling and writing them in great numbers.
The bill would have required us to file complicated reports to Congress every three months, and failure to do so could bring a $200,000 fine and 10 years in jail. Friends, that’s outrageous, anti-democratic and a violation of free speech. How dare they try to intimidate us like that!
When Dr. Dobson took to the airwaves to ask you to call your senators about this menace, the floodgates opened. Riding the wave of phone calls from you, two Republican senators, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Robert Bennett, were able to organize opposition on the Senate floor—and they killed the offending part of the lobbying bill. Seven Democrats joined every Republican senator who was present to vote it down.
Besides asking people to call, we alerted our Citizenlink e-mail recipients to sign petitions, which we had planned to take directly to the office of Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate leader. Within several days, more than 112,000 of you sent those petition forms back to us; but before we got them delivered, the legislation was killed.
The online campaign was directed by Peter Brandt, our senior director of issue response. Here’s a picture of Peter and me with our boxes of your petitions. They’re now being stored at our sister organization in Washington, D.C.—the Family Research Council—which is just several blocks from the Capitol, in case this nonsense comes up again.
A Lot of Action at Focus Action
Reporters ask me constantly about the extent of our efforts to alert you about what’s happening. They always want to know in detail what we’re saying and to whom, but I’m never open with them because I don’t want to signal to those who oppose us just what it is we’re planning to do. The downside of that, of course, is that I’m unable to explain things in detail to you, but you need to know at least something about how we’re handling the financial contributions you send us so faithfully.
So, please allow me to raise this curtain just a bit. You can see in the accompanying chart the dramatic increase in our activity each year since we began Focus on the Family Action in 2004. The columns measure how many times we used our various communication channels to reach you when critical information needed to be shared. These tools include: mailings, radio ads, calls to action to our daily Citizenlink online subscribers and periodic e-mail “blasts” to all of our constituents who have given us their e-mail addresses.
This summary also includes the periodic alerts that we “drop in” to the beginning of Dr. Dobson’s radio program when there is a matter of interest to a single state. If you listen to the program, you’ve heard these announcements from time to time. The most work-intensive tool we use is the traditional mailing; and although we try hard not to overload your mailbox, 2006 was an especially busy year. That year alone, we sent 2.4 million pieces of mail in 94 separate small mailings, each of these to individual states or congressional districts. Our staff works hard for you!
The “Friends of Focus Action” Pledge Program
One of the best ways for you to financially support the work of Focus Action is through our monthly pledge program. Since you may not have heard about it, I have enclosed a brochure that explains the convenience of automatic monthly credit card donations and electronic fund transfers. The brochure pinpoints specifically what activities your particular donation level will allow us to accomplish, so that your regular monthly donations will draw you closer to the action here. Please be assured that your financial information will be held in complete confidentiality.
Sincerely,
Tom Minnery
Senior Vice President
Focus on the Family Action
P.S. In spite of liberal threats, there’s great hope that we can ultimately win many of these battles. But we need financial help right now to educate Americans and call them to action. Will you stand with us by sending a generous gift today? Every dollar will be used carefully to block Nancy Pelosi’s liberal agenda.“
Download the Focus on the Family Action Update: March/April 2007 (PDF)
