Urgent Federal Action Alert

We have just been notified that an important vote is taking place in the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee at 2:00pm today. We are opposing two amendments to S. 462, the Public Housing Reform and Responsibility Act of 1997, that have been sponsored by Sen. Rod Grams (R-MN):

Grams Amendment #1:

all public housing applicants must turn over all drug and alcohol treatment records.

Grams Amendment #2:

eviction from public housing upon any discovery of any amount of illegal drugs from a legal police search.

Amendment #2 is particularly insidious, as many of the people who would suffer from it are people with AIDS. Collectively, they will have the effect of exacerbating several social ills, including homelessness, AIDS, tuberculosis, addiction, and crime. Even users in recovery will be harmed by this legislation. Whether or not you support public housing, we hope you will oppose the selective denial of benefits to this particularly persecuted group of people.

Please call the Committee at (202) 224-7391, and/or send a fax to the Majority Staff at (202) 224-5137 and the Minority Staff at (202) 224-2080, to express your opposition to these amendments. Please also contact the following Senators directly, especially Senators D'Amato and Grams:

                                        PHONE           FAX 

*Alfonse D'Amato, Chairman (R-NY)       224-6542                224-5871 

*Rod Grams (R-MN)                       224-3244                228-0956 

Phil Gramm (R-TX)                       224-2934                228-2856 

Richard C. Shelby (R-AL)                224-5744                224-3416 

Connie Mack (R-FL)                      224-5274                224-8022 

Lauch Faircloth (R-NC)                  224-3154                224-7406 

Robert F. Bennett (R-UT)                224-5444                224-4908 

Wayne Allard (R-CO)                     224-5852                224-1933 

Michael B. Enzi (R-WY)                  224-3424 

Chuck Hagel (R-NE)                      224-4224                224-5213 

Paul S. Sarbanes (D-MD)                 224-4524                224-1651 

Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT)              224-2823                224-1083 

John F. Kerry (D-MA)                    224-2742                224-8525 

Richard H. Bryan (D-NV)                 224-6244                224-1867 

Barbara Boxer (D-CA)                    224-3553                (415) 956-6701 

Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL)              224-2854                228-1318 

Tim Johnson (D-SD)                      224-5842                228-0368 

Jack Reed (D-RI)                        224-4642                224-4680 

(All numbers area code 202 except for Sen. Boxer's fax)

Some of the Senators have e-mail addresses, which can be accessed via the committee's web site at <http://www.senate.gov/committee/banking.html>. We don't know how regularly or reliably they check their e-mail, however, so we urge you to use phone or fax for this alert.

If you get this bulletin after 2:00pm, please respond anyway, as these votes are sometimes postponed.

If you like what you see here and want to get these bulletins by e-mail, please fill out our quick signup form at http://www.drcnet.org/signup.html.

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