TFT LEGISLATIVE HOTLINE (800-764-1177)
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2003
News Bulletin: House and Senate Reach Deal on June 30, 2004, Effective
Date for End to Last-Day Exemption From Social Security Offset ; TFT
Members Rally for Social Security Fairness
Harley Walsh, legislative assistant to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison,
Republican of Dallas, informed TFT today that U.S. Senate and House
committees have agreed that the effective date of the measure killing
the last-day exemption from the Government Pension Offset will be June
30, 2004.
This information is being shared with us so that school employees will
feel free to finish out the current school year where they are now and
still be able go to another school district covered by Social Security
to take advantage of the last-day exemption after the 2003-2004 school
year ends.
Hutchison staffer Walsh also reported that the bill containing this
provision ending the last-day exemption, H.R. 743, likely will be voted
on in the Senate after senators return from the Thanksgiving holiday,
presumably next week.
If H.R. 743 passes in the Senate, as seems highly likely, this bill
will come back for a House vote on whether to accept the amendments
senators have adopted. The deal described above between the House and
Senate committees with jurisdiction over the bill makes House
concurrence more likely.
TFT continues to work this week with allies in both chambers of
Congress to figure out our best strategic options for what may be the
impending end-game in the fight over H.R. 743. Beyond that fight looms
the larger battle for the enactment of the Social Security Fairness Act,
H.R. 594. Passage of H.R. 594, which would repeal entirely the unfair
Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision, will
become an even more urgent priority if and when the last avenue for
avoiding the Government Pension Offset is shut off by H.R. 743.
TFT Members Rally for Social Security Fairness
Yesterday morning close to 500 TFT members and allies from other labor
unions descended on U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's office in
Stafford to call with one voice for a vote on the Social Security
Fairness Act.
The crowd carried signs and shouted its message demanding "no more
delay" in scheduling a vote on this legislation, H.R. 594, which has
been cosponsored by 277 members of the U.S. House-more than enough to
pass the bill if only Congressman DeLay would let it come up for a vote.
(The Republican from the Houston suburbs is nominally the
second-in-command in the U.S. House, but he is widely recognized to be
the most powerful behind-the-scenes player on the premises.)
DeLay's staff put out a "Welcome Texas Teachers" sign and a table full
of literature claiming that school employees have no good reason to
complain about the unfairness of two Social Security offset provisions
that can wipe out the benefits that school employees or their spouses
have fully earned. The congressman's staff also put out a plate of
cookies for the demonstrators, prompting the day's most memorable chant:
"We don't want the cookies, we want the dough!" The picket line of
peaceful but vehement and vocal protesters in front of DeLay's office
stretched from one end of the block to the other and back.
Capping the rally were speeches from an array of TFT and allied union
leaders. Karrie Washenfelder, president of the Fort Bend Employees
Federation, made it clear that this rally is just the beginning of a
campaign that Tom DeLay will have to get used to until Social Security
fairness is achieved. As TFT President John Cole put it, our members
were there this morning to exercise their constitutional right as
citizens to petition their government for the redress of grievances. He
called on Congressman DeLay to cease acting like a dictator and to let
the U.S. House vote on H.R. 594. TFT Secretary-Treasurer John
O'Sullivan recapped the substance of our grievance, detailing how the
Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset treat
school employees as if their earned Social Security benefits were
somehow ill-gotten gains.
TFT LEGISLATIVE HOTLINE (800-764-1177)
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2003
Congress Won't Act on Social Security Offset Before December 9;
Grass-Roots Lobbying for Social Security Fairness
The U.S. Senate next will meet on December 9, with a fight over the
federal budget as the main attraction but with action possible as well
on H.R. 743, the bill containing a provision to end the "last-day
exemption" from the Social Security Government Pension Offset.
As reported in yesterday's hotline, the provision killing the last-day
exemption would carry an effective date of June 30, 2004, under a
compromise worked out between the House and Senate committees that have
jurisdiction over the bill.
Exactly when the bill will come up for a vote in the Senate and when it
would come back to the House for a final vote on Senate amendments
remains unsettled. We'll have more to report on the outlook for this
legislation after the Thanksgiving holiday break, when the hotline
resumes on December 1.
Meanwhile, you should be gearing up for grass-roots lobbying with
renewed vigor on the bill to get rid of the Government Pension Offset
altogether, along with the similarly obnoxious Windfall Elimination
Provision. These two offsets would be repealed under H.R. 594/S. 349,
the companion bills that have attracted 277 cosponsors in the U.S. House
and 29 in the U.S. Senate.
A letter posted on the TFT Web site, www.tft.org, can be sent to both
your two U.S. senators, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Dallas, and
John Cornyn, Republican of San Antonio. The same message can be
dispatched to your member of the U.S. House. If you don't know your U.S.
House member's name, no problem: Just plugging in your full residence
address on the "message to Congress" page of our Web site will reveal
who represents you in the House and allow your letter to be directed
automatically to the right office.
You also can make a phone call for free to your two senators and your
member of the House on the AFT toll-free line to the U.S. Capitol
switchboard, 1-800-839-5276.
Nine of our 32 Texas members of the U.S. House from Texas and both our
senators have not yet signed on to H.R. 594 and S. 349 as cosponsors.
They should be the focus of our grass-roots lobbying efforts.
The nine hold-outs in the House are: Joe Barton of Ennis, Kevin Brady
of The Woodlands, John Culberson of Houston, Tom DeLay of Sugar Land,
Kay Granger of Fort Worth, Jeb Hensarling of Dallas, Sam Johnson of
Plano, Lamar Smith of San Antonio, and Mac Thornberry of Clarendon. Out
of this group, two who have voted on your side once or more on key votes
on the issue of Social Security fairness are Kay Granger of Fort Worth
and Jeb Hensarling of Dallas. If you're in the district of either of
these worthies, the effort to win their cosponsorship of H.R. 594 should
have an especially good chance of success.
In the U.S. Senate, Kay Bailey Hutchison already has been helpful in
first slowing down the progress of the bill to kill the last-day
exemption from the GPO and then in modifying it to make the bill less
harmful to Texas school employees. A thank-you for that and a renewed
request for her cosponsorship of S. 349, the Social Security Fairness
Act, would be timely. Conversations with Sen. Cornyn's staff also
suggest to us that a strong push to win his cosponsorship of the
Fairness Act could be successful. Given the huge harm done to Texas
school employees by the two Social Security offsets that the Fairness
Act would repeal, every member of the Texas delegation should be
fighting for you in support of the Fairness Act, and that is the message
all the hold-outs need to hear.
Mary Croix Ludwick, Librarian K-5
Owen Elementary, Lewisville ISD (near Dallas, Texas)
ludwickm@lisd.net (school) ludwick@swbell.net (home)
"Those who don't read have no advantage over
those who can't." Mark Twain
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