one thing you want to do as an organizer is build actions in steps so that they lead somewhere ... such was the case with this year's march 1st legislative write-a-thon ...

march 1st is an annual day for collective action across the state - something we plan, create tools for, and mobilize people to participate in ... we moved from doing outdoor rallies at the legislature to holding "write-a-thons" that target elected officials with a message we want them to hear ...

2006 is our 4th year of this event but it's the first time that we have followed it up with a lobby day-on-the-hill ... exactly 4 weeks apart ....

this year's event was huge for us - we have generated 1063 letters to date and there is going to be a write-a-thon in carroll county on the bethel college campus this week so we may will surpass the 1100 mark and perhaps the 1200 mark!!!

how does this support our lobby day???

we targeted 7 state officials that we asked everyone to write to (as well as their own state senator and representative) -- these targets included the chairs and vice-chairs of the house and senate judiciary committees -- if we figure an average of 8 letters per writer then we believe that each of these key committee members received over 130 letters each in support of moratorium and study legislation -- THAT'S A LOT OF LETTERS!

so on march 29th an extra visit for many people will be to stop by to say hi joe fowlkes, kent coleman, curtis person, and doug jackson and say i hope that you will support fairness in our criminal justice system and support the house bill or senate bill we wrote you about ...

it may even be enough to move the house bill out of sub-committee and perhaps even committee this year ...

so for those good citizens who wrote their 8 letters get a sense of the power that your letters have when combined with the intentional action of other good citizens ... great work!!!

and next year we'll write 2500 letters and in 2008 we'll write 5000 letters ... and we'll pass legislation ...

for those of you who didn't pick up the pen, no matter how against the death penalty you are, you still have the chance to join those of us who acknowledge that we can accomplish more in unison than we can splintered and alone ...

peace out - <3