Communicating With Your Legislator

Writing Letters

When writing to elected officials, address the letter to “The Honorable First Name Last Name,” followed by the legislature name, then the city, state, and zip code. Start your letter with the person’s title, then their name. For example:

For U.S. Congressional Representatives

Dear Representative First Name Last Name

For U.S. Senators

Dear Senator First Name Last Name

For California Assembly Members

Dear Assemblyman (or Assemblywoman) First Name Last Name

For example:

You can mail or fax your letter. If you want to influence your representative’s vote on a particular piece of legislation, it’s best to fax so it reaches them in time.

Phone Calls

Phone calls are a very effective way to let your legislator know how you feel. Every office has trained staff assigned to take constituent phone calls and keep track of comments, which are then given to the legislator every day and before votes.

E-mails

Sadly, due to the high volume of form e-mails, this is not the most effective method for communicating with your representative. Also, some offices are more e-mail friendly than others. To combat form e-mails, most legislators now suggest that constituents visit their individual web page and fill out a contact form. This is a much better way to communicate than sending e-mail to his/her e-mail address. Links to individual websites are provided below.

U.S. Senators

Every state has two Senators. Both are your representatives. The address for both Senators is: U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510.

The Senate website is:

www.senate.gov

Senator Alex Padilla

(202) 224-3553
http://www.padilla.senate.gov/

Senator Dianne Feinstein

(202) 224-3841
(310) 914-7300 in Los Angeles
FAX (202) 228-3954
https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me

U.S. Representatives

The address for all U.S. Representatives is: U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. 20515 If you don’t know your representative, visit https://www.house.gov/ and enter your zip code.

California State Senate

The address for all state representatives is: State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814 Sacramento area codes are 916. If you do not know your state representatives, visit https://www.assembly.ca.gov/ and click on “Find My District”.

FEDERAL

Reinstate Prevailing Parents’ Right To Expert Witness Fees (Shared by Copaa.org)

Why This Issue Is Critical

Without the ability to recover their expert witness fees, few parents could afford to exercise their constitutional and IDEA rights to challenge denial of FAPE to their children by school districts.

This is because parents, who increasingly have the burden of proof after the Supreme Court decision in Schaffer v. Weast, must present admissible evidence about educational methodology, complex behavioral supports, medical issues, and other technical subjects. Only qualified expert witnesses can present this technical testimony and such testimony can easily cost many thousands of dollars, money that few parents have.

School districts, by way of contrast, employ and therefore are able to rely on psychologists, therapists, and other education experts on their staffs to serve as expert witnesses. There can be no equal opportunity and access to a public education that is both free and appropriate unless all families of children with disabilities–rich, poor and those in the vast middle–can obtain an education on the same terms. Without the ability to recover expert costs, the due process playing field ceases to be level or fair.

Parents who bring IDEA cases act as private Attorneys General, on whom IDEA’s enforcement depends. When these parents successfully prosecute their cases and hearing officers or courts find that school districts have violated the law, then parents should recover their expert witness costs. (Of course, if the school district acted in accord with the law, and the parents lose, they recover no fees.)

COPAA initiated legislation entitled the IDEA Fairness Restoration Act that would reverse Arlington Central School District v. Murphy (2006) in which the Supreme Court decided that parents who win/prevail in their IDEA cases cannot get expert witness fees under the provision in the law that allows parents who win/prevail to get attorneys’ fees. Although the legislative history to the IDEA fees provision clearly states that expert fees are covered the Supreme Court refused to consider that history.

The IDEA Fairness Restoration Act was Congress’ clearly stated intent in 1986. When Congress passed the Handicapped Children’s Protection Act, it recognized that school districts can use therapists, psychologists, and other expert witnesses on their own payroll, or hire outside experts with taxpayer dollars. Over 20 years later few parents can afford the thousands of dollars needed to pay qualified medical, educational, and technical experts. Almost 2/3 of children with disabilities live in families earning under $50,000 a year. When prevailing parents cannot recover expert costs, the playing field is neither level nor fair, and children are denied a free appropriate public education and other fundamental IDEA rights. Parents are left unable to enforce their children’s rights unless they can pay for experts out of their pockets. Congress should allow prevailing parents to recover fees just like plaintiffs in ADA, Title VII, and other civil rights cases.

What can I DO? Please contact Congress and share your concerns about this issue.

CALIFORNIA

October 9, 2013
SB468 – Bill on Self Determination – Update
(Shared by our friends at ASA)

SB 468 was signed into law by Governor Brown today. It is because of all of the hard work of parents and individuals with developmental disabilities that we have made it to this point. We heard from a high level administration official that they have never received so many letters and calls on a human services bill before.

Thank you to everyone for all of your help!! There is still a lot of work to be done and we will be turning to you to join the Advisory Committees of each regional center to ensure that the bill is implemented as the legislature intended.

We are indebted to Senator Bill Emmerson, Senator Emmerson and his staff, as well as the other authors – Senator Jim Beall, Assemblymember (now Senator) Holly Mitchell, and Assemblymember Wes Chesbro who all worked so hard on behalf of Californians with developmental disabilities.

Great job ASA!