2007 Association Convention--Adopting 2007-09 Public Policy Program

At the last business session of the convention on July 2, the 2007-09 Public Policy Program was adopted, after several amendments, including a significant one by the Public Policy committee, who moved to restore the final section of the action priorities that they had originally proposed to delete. Their original thinking was the the issues of social justice (civil rights, reproductive rights, health care, human rights, etc) should instead be added to the Principles section of the document, but that the Action Priorities should focus on just the two areas of education and economic equity.

Convention delegates spoke out in briefing sessions and in gatherings in the hallway, speaking loud and clearly that they wanted the social justice section to remain in the Action Priorities (as well as being added to the Principles section). And in one of those wonderful cases of leadership listening and responding to members' voices, the committee did exactly that!

Several other amendments to the proposed document were offered, and two were approved: one to specify that our support of international family planning programs are for those that are consistent with AAUW policy; and another introduced by our branch's own Tobi B. to include the words "pay equity" in the list of those economic self-sufficiency issues. Great job, Tobi!!

A word here about AAUW public policy in general.... If you aren't already subscribed to AAUW's Action Alerts, you should be. (And this is available to anyone, not just AAUW's members). Not only will this resource alert you to equity issues and give you the ability to respond instantly, but doing so through the links provided assists our lobbying staff to track the contacts our members have made to their legislators. So when they call your senator and s/he claims not to have heard from constiuents on that topic, they can tell them how many AAUW members have sent email, etc, based just on that resource.

In other words, those emails you send to legislators DO count! So don't stop sending 'em!