The  Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 was first introduced to the House January 5, 2007, by George Miller. The first thought would be to write his office a letter about how more change needs to be made, but as of January 3, of this year (2011) he is no longer in office. The next person of power who was one of the bills largest supporters that I would write would be Arlen Specter, as well as Chaka Fatah. As they are huge supporters of the bill and they are the senator and state representative of my district. I chose to write a letter because any other method, such as a PSA or ads would be difficult. A PSA would be difficult jus because Id like to show the suffering people go through from lack of income firsthand and I doubt there is anyone who’d like to volunteer their life to be shown on TV. I also feel as though, ads are very ineffective because I myself see a million ads a day, and remember very few of them.

So, I wrote a letter to the Chaka Fatah, as well as Arlen Specter:

“Dear  ____ :

Hello, my name is Alexis Montgomery and I attend Science Leadership Academy. Recently, one of our assignments in our American Government class was to choose a topic we felt strongly bout and lobby it. I chose to lobby Minimum Wage. From the beginning of time, when people decided to start trading money, jewels, valuables, etc in return for labor, one of the biggest issues was the amount of wages the laborer received. This problem had reached such signifigance in the US that the Fair Labor Standards Act was initially introduced to the House in 1938. The Fair Labor Standards Act applies to "employees who are engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, or who are employed by an enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce", unless the employer can claim an exemption from coverage. This first act opened the doorway to change in America, from then on every few years, new acts were created to change the amount of wages paid to workers through bills such as the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, the Department of Defense Authorization Act of 1986, etc.

In 2008, the wages reached an all-time high of $7.25 due to the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. This change created  a large jump in the poverty line graph from year to year. Although we’ve made such progress, we haven’t made enough. I’m sure your already aware that 15% of the United States lies below the poverty line STILL. Yes, we cant save everyone, but if we can lower that number as much as possible at least we’ve accomplished something.

Through examination of minimum wage, I’ve researched, in the 2009/ 2010 Poverty Guildlines, that the poverty line, or “poverty threshold” in this country for a 3 unit size household is $18, 310. This number, is considering that all three family members work. What about single mothers with children? Even a single mother with two children, who are too young to work, the poverty line would be $10,830. Is that really all a mother and her children can live off? If the minimum wage is $7.25, and the mother works 40 hours a week, she only makes $7,540. That is still $3,290 below the poverty line. How is the minimum wage effective, if this still leaves some people working their tales off, but still coming below the poverty line. I applaud your effort in helping and voting for the Fair Minimum wage Act of 2007 and I ask that you please take this consideration. I hope that you reply to this email.

Alexis Montgomery

Science Leadership Academy

55 N. 22^nd St.

Philadelphia, Pa 19103

(215) 910 0637

Hello, I'm not sure if you got my email but I'm going to send it to you again. My apologies for responding late but you said an volunteer opportunity was "If you have any connections at area grade schools or high schools, let us know; we are always trying to get into schools with our Humane Education Presentations." What does this mean or involve actually? I am asking because I attended Science Leadership Academy and many people here are vegetarian, and not to long a go in a history class was playing a move on how our food is produce and what they do to the animals. So, if you or any of your members of the Humane League would like to come and talk to our school that be grate. Just let me know. Have a blissful rest of the week. 

Sincerely,

Leeann Nguyen. :]

It took Lydia until today to message me back on the topic. She was happy I followed up to make sure she got the email and responded with this email: 

Hi Leanne,

Thanks for following up with me! I did indeed have miss  your earlier email so I appreciate  your reaching out again.

Our Humane Ed presentations   focus on the ethical issues of factory farming and its impact on animals, the environment and human health.  They are free and virtually always get great feedback from students. You can learn a bit more from clicking on the link above.

The most important information we would need from you is the name and contact information of a particular teacher who would be interested in devoting his or her classroom time to one of our presentations. Appropriate teachers might be biology teachers, ethics teachers, social sciences teachers, or perhaps in your case, the history teacher who showed the movie you described. If you can provide a name of someone who would be receptive to the idea of a presentation, let  me know and I will follow up from there.  

If you need any more information or have other questions, contact me!

Thanks again,

Lydia

I'm thrilled she had messaged me back on this matter but a little disappointed in myself that it was to close to the due date to make this an event for people. If I had more time I would have liked Lydia to come in and talk to students that are interested in the topic as well and go and volunteer at an event with her. I should have followed up with my first email sooner then I did. I know that their are a lot of organization out there that deal with animal cruelty that I could also contacted for example PSACA, WSPA, and FoA. I reflect on this and am glad I had the chance to be in contact with Lydia and for her to give me information on what their organization does to help prevent animal cruelty and I wouldn't change my topic, I would just have wished I could have done more. 

For my final lobbying assignment I took the time to attempt at establishing communication between State Rep Ronald Waters and myself. I received the same response as before to where my request was being processed and because if the extensive amounts of emails to Mr. Waters delay was to be expected and it would take time from his office to reply on the emails. My first attempt was within either Lobbying assignment #3 or #4. Hopefully this attempt will close a line of communication between Mr. Waters and myself. 

Within the following two days time span of me sending an email to Rep. Waters communication directly with Mr. Waters office in Harrisburg and Philadelphia was also attempted. 

A message was left with one of his telephone office officials and other means of communication is underway. 

My progress will be updated on establishing a clear line of communication. 

After trying to establish a clear line of communication to someone in the Philadelphia field office of State Rep. Waters little to no progress has been made on their part. I called multiple times and due to high volumes of phone calls and emails I was placed on a list of those who will be contacted In the order at which they where received.

IN my first email i restated my objective and its purpose and once i called his office i stated briefly what my objective and purpose was again. I sent two emails and called his office twice with messages that followed after my failing attempts. 

If the office of State Rep. Ronald Waters attempts to contact me I will comply with my elegant contentions and discuses my lobbying issue in hope for change.  

David A. Buckholtz

Sending out emails to me is not effective. I would have to send out hundreds of emails to people who would not have the time to personally message me back in time to finish this project or not knowing if the person that replies to it is actually the person written to. Instead I would like to create a 30 second PSA or commercial with people from all ages and race groups that have been convicted served their time but cannot vote to say "I made a mistake but Ive changed" with a quick profile of the person running by on the screen with their age, race, what they did and how long ago. 

After making this video I would then:

• Publish on a public blogging site.
• Share the link with a News Station.
• Publish on SLA's blogging site.
• Send the link to the Washington Post
• Send the link to the congressman who introduced the law.

Reflection: 

Although I hope to still do this video, it was very hard to find people that would actually be comfortable talking about that they did, especially those who are able or not able to vote today. Instead I took their stories and anonymously wrote a word document that expressed how they felt about the bill and the fact they were not allowed to vote. There were two people who I interviewed and both stories were completely different. Attached is the google doc link.

My partner and I research and took on the task of apply for welfare. We discovered that there are multiple steps that one can take. There is the option to apply separately apply for cash benefits, food stamps, and medical assistance or all together.

Depending on if one wants all the benefits there are different processes but everyone must fill out an application and mail or bring it to their local county assistance office. From there a face-to-face interview may occur, a Mutual Responsibility Form will be filled out (if granted cash and medical assistance) and electronic transferring will begin.

The application was long and difficult. It requirement extensive information about the person applying for welfare, each other their family members, significant other, jobs, education, housing, and more. At times it seemed repetitive. It made me wonder how difficult it might be for someone who really is in need that might not have a phone, house, proper identification, etc.

One thing about the welfare system I wish could be changed is some of the people that take part in the system. There are people that certainly do abuse the system. For example, using cash benefits for drugs or other unnecessary things. I cannot think of a proper way to assess but there should be a back up for people that participate in cash benefits especially. This is one of the reasons why the system has become so complicated; there are so many people that apply that could potentially abuse the system. In addition, there are too many people involved such as, those that are in need, the government, the civilians that contribute to those in need, etc.

It was an interesting experience applying for welfare. I realized how hard it could be for one in need to get help. The research I did also put welfare into perspective for me.  I’m happy to have had this experience.

Ashley Hinton

Blog Post: Bureaucracy Reflection

            The bureaucratic task that Brianna and I selected was obtaining a homosexual marriage license in the state of Massachusetts. At first we thought the topic would be difficult to take on, only because gay marriages aren’t accepted in most states. After finding that it is allowed in more than five states in the U.S, we were able to continue our research at ease.  After finding which states were legal and which weren’t, we then choose to focus mainly on the process of obtaining a marriage license in Massachusetts only, being as though the process is slightly different in each state. We found that the first step to becoming a homosexual married couple was to request very crucial paperwork. In Massachusetts, you must have a notice of intention of marriage, given in compliance of the law, which is a document that provides the names; genders, citizenship, age, race and occupations of both parties and along with other needed information. The paper work was pretty straightforward. There was some information we felt as though was unneeded. We also felt as though there was a lot of extra work we had to do because we were a homosexual couple getting married.

            If I could change one thing about the bureaucratic process, it would be of the last few steps in our flowchart (step 6). In step six of our flowcharted process it states that your marriage license will only be valid for sixty days. This is the only part of our process I would change. I feel like homosexual couples work so hard to get to this point and they shouldn’t have to go through the process all over again if they feel they aren’t ready in sixty days. I think this system in particular is so complicated because gay marriage isn’t something that’s necessarily accepted everywhere. It’s not something that’s happening everyday and so the process will never be easy. After completing the research on this project, I found that a flowchart is a great way to represent information that is difficult to understand. The flowcharts that were designed in our class were extremely helpful in understanding different bureautic processes and helped us to understand the systems of our world and how they function.