An American Cares Project

[Gösta H. Lovgren]

This forum is for those involved the An American Cares project.

For details go here: http://www.AnAmericanCares.com.

[Gösta H. Lovgren]

Tuesday, 2007-12-10

This morning I spoke with Senator Len Connors (phone). (Background - the Senator is an old friend from back in the days when I was politically active. Probably 30 years ago or more when he was mayor of a town in Long Beach Island suing the government over the 1976 ocean pollution kill and I was President of the National Sea Clammers Association when we also instituted suit against 23 governments -Local, State, Federal. Our case went all the way to Oral Argument before the US Supreme Court {note less than 50 cases of the tens of thousands filed every year are important enough to make it to Oral Argument. And I litrerally had a front row seat.). We lost {sigh}. It's a really neat story but not relevant here.).

Thursday I will sit down with him at his office and we will lay down a plan of action (or more accurately he will offer his advice on how to proceed.) It is especially gracious of him to offer his valuable time right now, the NJ Legislature is wrapping up a two year term and lots of important bills are backed up (what else is new in politics?) including major funding bills. It's always crazy time in Trenton at session ends and legislator time is at a premium. Especially so as Sentaor Connors is retiring this year (and is the longest currently serving Senator in NJ) and time demands are even more critical for him.

He is confident Congressman Saxton will support AAC (Background - I "know" the Congressman from when he was a NJ State Senator - again back when I was politcally active - we had lunch together set up by a mutual friend to discuss fishery issues. And have had a few written communications over the years. I say "know" because politicians, especially Congressmen "know" a lot of people (literally 1,000's). It's in the nature of their business. I think Congressmen are the most besieged and beleagured people in the country. Virtually everybody wants a piece of their time, or their vote or some favor or other. Everybody in their districts. And every national lobby in the country. Non stop.)

Senator Connors is encouraged and hopeful Congressman Saxton will write a bill they are old friends and colleagues). There are two unexpected hurdles though, both of which happened after starting the AAC initiative.

First is the Congressman announced his retirement at the end of his term (December 2008).

Second is the Congressman has prostate cancer. The hope is the PCa is not "serious" (caught early and treatable). I don't mean to sound like I'm belittling PCa but many men over 60 face it. Both the Senator and I are on "Watchful Waiting" for example (most men die with it, not from it.). Hopefully the Congressman's PCa is the with it variety.

Those are things we will be discussing on Thursday.

[Gösta H. Lovgren]

Met today with Senator Connors (almost two hours). We discussed stragegy on how to procede with the AAC project. He is fine with the name change from "America Cares" to "An American Cares" when I explained how domain sitters have reserved AmericaCares.com and wanted $600 to purchase the name.

He brought Jason Smith (the Senator's legislative aide) in to the meeting. Jason, though a young man, recalled seeing a WWII era Care Package exhibit in a London museum where he visited last year. So, unlike Christine, he was familiar with the concept.

The Senator put in a call to Congressman Saxton in Washington but he was unavailable (committee meeting or something) but is certain to return the call later today.

Senator Connors is very confident Congressman Saxton will sponsor AAC Legislation in Congress. In the meantime a Resolution from the NJ Legislature will be introduced in January asking Congress to pass AAC legislation. What the NJ Legislative Resolution will (or "should" rather than "will" is maybe better given the nature of politics) do is get the entire NJ Congressional Delegation behind the AAC proposal.

We diuscussed what should be done to get ready to get the word out once the NJ Resolution passes, and get a Congression Bill in the hopper.

Obviously the Senator is enthusiastic about AAC and this is a man not unexperienced in politics and the legislative process. Not one to get involved in a losing cause.

[Gösta H. Lovgren]

As you may know (if you've been reading the History Link (http://www.AnAmericanCares.com/History.html (http://www.AnAmericanCares.com/History.html)) on the website) you will know Politics has reared its ugly head.

Congressman Saxtion cancelled a Jan 2 meeting where the An American Cares project was to be discussed. The meetng hasn't been rescheduled (as of Jan 16) and I don't expect it to be any time soon.

As mentioned before, The Congressman announced his retirement in Dec 2008. He is from Burlington County but it was widely expected he would sponsor a Freeholder from Ocean County (Senator Connors' county). (I'm guessing there was a pretty firm deal or agreement in place.) But the Congressman's office put out a press release on Jan 8 or 9 that he was supporting a mayor from Burlington County for his seat.

That explains why he cancelled and why his office has taken such a cavalier attitude (see "Christine" in the history for more details). I'm betting he (and his entire office) knew back in October he was going to "double cross" the Ocean County Republicans but for some reason didn't want to make the announcement before January. (Maybe he wanted to wait until the 2007 NJ Legislture closed up shop for some reason.)

That was why he agreed to the January meeting that was probably made at Senator Connors' insistence. He didn't want to tip his hand yet. Certainly the AAC project wasn't going to be the only, or even main, subject of the meeting.

Whether this turn of events means Saxton is out of the picture or not, I don't know. Probably so. It almost certainly means the Ocean County support of any reintroduction of the Resolution of Support for AAC (if sponsored by Saxton) will be less, ahhhh ..., enthusiastic.

I will call the NJ State Senator from my district (Cisela) and ask him to reintroduce the Resolution of 2007 (http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2006/Bills/SCR/155_I1.HTM). He was a co-sponsor of it then. (Actually I will call his office and leave a message. I don't actually know Senator Cisela and wouldn't expect him to return a stranger's call.)