Greetings Navy League Contra Costa Councilmates,

            I am your Legislative Affairs Vice President and I’m taking this opportunity to say howdy. Howdy!  The Council has recently produced an updated membership roster, and I’ve just finished updating my email address book with as many of your email addresses as are listed there (our thanks to Bruce and Chris Clegg and all the others for updating the roster, your efforts are greatly appreciated).

My intention is to keep our membership informed as to the Council’s legislative affairs program and hot topics that come from time to time, and while I do anticipate sending messages throughout the year I promise not to abuse the privilege with unnecessary emails. Let me know if it becomes more than you’d like and I’ll tailor my distribution list accordingly.

            Getting right into the meat and potatoes of the matter, our Council has an active legislative affairs program with a very specific mission: Educate our elected officials on the importance of maintaining strong, capable and ready maritime forces.  We pursue that mission in two ways: 1) interaction with our designated member of the House of Representatives, Mark DeSaunier of California’s 11^th Congressional District, which is something I do on the Council’s behalf; 2) email campaigns on specific issues through the Navy League’s “Voice to Congress” initiative, which is something that you can do through the Navy League’s national website.

            Voice to Congress is a pretty powerful tool when it comes to educating our elected leaders.  The Navy League has prepared messages on a variety of issues, and as individual constituents we can add our voices and let our Senators and Representatives know that these issues are important to us.  If you’re interested in participating in Voice to Congress you can check out http://cqrcengage.com/navyleague/.  Lots of good stuff there, and the beauty is that we don’t have to compose a message on our own. We simply use the prepared messages and add our own name and zip code, and the Navy League does the rest by directing our message to the appropriate elected officials.. It couldn’t be easier, and it’s really effective.  I recently participated Voice to Congress on the funding proposal that sought to reduce the Coast Guard’s budget by millions of dollars.

            I’ve got lots more legislative affairs stuff I could share with you in this message, but perhaps this is a good place to pause.  We’ve got an active program, and I look forward to telling you more about as the year progresses.  I’ve got a PowerPoint slide deck that outlines our Council’s program that I’d be happy to send to those who’d like to see it.  One thing about Navy League Legislative Affairs is that its intended to be a team effort at the Council level, and if you’re interested in helping out I certainly could use a hand with some specific tasks.  There’s some training involved, but it’s not burdensome and is very helpful in understanding the mission and the tasks.  Sing out if you’d like to take the plunge.

Very Respectfully,

Bill Kinsey

Vice President, Legislative Affairs

Contra Costa Council

Navy League of the United States