I've unfortunately been called for jury duty and have a nursing 2 month old and an almost 4 year old of whom I'm the full-time caregiver.
In 2004, Gene DeRossett sponsored a bill to "provide excuse from service for persons who have sole responsibility of children under the age of 6." The bill unfortunately died in committee. The bill didn't specifically talk about breastfeeding mothers, but this would be of great benefit to them.
I attended a Great Start Oakland parent meeting that had a presentation on lobbying congress concerning issues that you find important. The presenter said that 12 contacts to the representative will make a difference in how they view the issue. The bill above had only one sponsor. The current bill 4455 (2009) concerning foreclosed houses has at least 15 sponsors and is moving through the different steps to make it law. She also told us that unique contacts - such as a letter in the shape of an outline of a mom and children (I'm thinking paper-doll type with a large figure in the middle with a smaller one on each side) gets better attention than an email or a phone call. I guess the reps even display this type of contact in their offices.
I am planning to go meet with Marie Donigan (Madison Heights, Royal Oak) on Friday about proposing this bill again. If I can get her to agree, what we'll need is at least 12 people from each of at least 10-15 districts to contact their reps about sponsoring a new bill.
This is going to be a lot of work, but if you're interested in helping out, let me know what district you're in (you're zip code will work) and how many people from your district you think you can encourage to contact their rep.
Maybe we can get a yahoo group going. We can list the reps and who will be in charge of contacting them. We could also make a template for the letter writers to use.
After this gets going, we can use much of the same info to get a NIP law passed. Isn't the internet great?
Monica
In 2004, Gene DeRossett sponsored a bill to "provide excuse from service for persons who have sole responsibility of children under the age of 6." The bill unfortunately died in committee. The bill didn't specifically talk about breastfeeding mothers, but this would be of great benefit to them.
I attended a Great Start Oakland parent meeting that had a presentation on lobbying congress concerning issues that you find important. The presenter said that 12 contacts to the representative will make a difference in how they view the issue. The bill above had only one sponsor. The current bill 4455 (2009) concerning foreclosed houses has at least 15 sponsors and is moving through the different steps to make it law. She also told us that unique contacts - such as a letter in the shape of an outline of a mom and children (I'm thinking paper-doll type with a large figure in the middle with a smaller one on each side) gets better attention than an email or a phone call. I guess the reps even display this type of contact in their offices.
I am planning to go meet with Marie Donigan (Madison Heights, Royal Oak) on Friday about proposing this bill again. If I can get her to agree, what we'll need is at least 12 people from each of at least 10-15 districts to contact their reps about sponsoring a new bill.
This is going to be a lot of work, but if you're interested in helping out, let me know what district you're in (you're zip code will work) and how many people from your district you think you can encourage to contact their rep.
Maybe we can get a yahoo group going. We can list the reps and who will be in charge of contacting them. We could also make a template for the letter writers to use.
After this gets going, we can use much of the same info to get a NIP law passed. Isn't the internet great?
Monica
Hmmmm...the upshot is that it's federal property...and the federal law states that anywhere you are allowed to be with your baby on federal property, you are allowed to breastfeed your baby...so could you have a caregiver bring her to nurse on recesses? At least then you wouldn't have to pump as much. Oh, man, that stinks. 
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