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PAST ACTION ALERTS -
2007 |
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Issued:
July 2, 2007
CAN INFO ALERT
Statement of SD Bishops on Death Penalty
The execution of Elijah
Page is scheduled for sometime during the
week of July 9, 2007. Bishop Paul J. Swain
and Bishop Blase Cupich released the
attached statement. This statement is also
available on the Death
Penalty page of the
CAN Website and on the
main diocesan website at
www.sfcatholic.org. Please
keep this in your prayers.
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Issued:
April 2, 2007
CAN NATIONAL ACTION ALERT
Date Set
for Embryonic Stem Cell Research Vote
Please read the following email from NCHLA,
including the updated action alert that is
linked in the text of the email, and then
contact Senators Johnson and Thune; as
always, you can find the contact information
on the CAN website under the "Contact Public
Officials" link:
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National Committee for a Human Life
Amendment, Inc. |
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E-Mail Memo
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DATE: March
30, 2007
TO: Diocesan Pro-Life
Coordinators, State Catholic Conference
Directors, Friends
FROM: Michael Taylor, Executive
Director
Senate ESCR Vote Expected April 11
The Senate has approved a unanimous
consent agreement for proceeding with a
vote on stem cell research legislation.
Up to 20 hours of debate will begin
Tuesday, April 10 on two bills, S. 5 and
S. 30, with votes expected Wednesday,
April 11. No amendments will be allowed.
The Senate will vote first on S. 5, then
on S. 30. Each bill will require 60
votes for passage.
An updated Action Alert can be found at nchla.org/actiondisplay.asp?ID=243.
Senators should be urged to oppose S. 5.
It is that bill, albeit with a new
section added, that authorizes the use
of federal funds to promote the
destruction of human embryos for stem
cell research.
The Senate is now in recess and will
return April 10. During this time, if
possible, avail yourselves of the
opportunity to meet with Senators in
their home offices.
Easter is Coming
The NCHLA staff extends to you and your
families wishes for a prayerful Holy
Week and a blessed Easter!
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Issued:
February 27, 2007
Disregard Alert on Abortion Ban (HB 1293)
This is an example of
why we sometimes hold off on our action
alerts until what might seem like the "last
minute." With such a short legislative
session, things change very quickly, and
before asking you to contact legislators,
especially on actions that are not
officially scheduled, such as a "smoke out",
we want to ensure that they are actually
going to take place.
While we were just told
yesterday that a smoke-out attempt would
happen, we have now been informed by the
prime sponsor of HB
1293 that they will
NOT try a smoke-out. Please do not contact
your Senators, and please do not forward our
previous alert through your networks. If
you already have, please be sure to pass
this email on.
May we all continue to
pray and work together to end abortion in
our State and Nation.
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Issued:
February 27, 2007
(DISREGARD)
Yesterday the sponsors
of HB 1293, the Abortion Ban, decided that
they would attempt a "smoke-out" of this
bill on the floor of the Senate, likely
tomorrow, Wednesday, February 28,
2007. A successful smoke-out
requires that 1/3 of the Senate vote to have
the bill delivered to them from committee
for debate by the full Senate. If there is
support for the smoke-out, the next
legislative step would be a vote to strike
the "not" in the "Do not pass"
recommendation that was made by the Senate
State Affairs committee when they
voted to defer the bill until the
41st legislative day, which is
a day that does not exist. The vote to
"strike the not" requires a majority vote by
the Senate. If this is successful, then
debate on the floor can take place, followed
by a full vote on the merits of the bill.
Please
contact your Senators
and urge them to support this smoke-out so
that this bill can be debated by the full
Senate. The Senate convenes at 2:00 p.m.
each day, so please try to contact them
prior to 2:00 p.m. tomorrow.
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Issued:
February 26, 2007
Brunner, Thomas J.
Cutler, Joni M.
Deadrick, Thomas J.
Dykstra, Joel D.
Faehn, Bob
Gillespie, Margaret V.
Hargens, Dale
Krebs, Shantel
Miles, Kathy
Moore, Garry A.
Rave, Tim
Rhoden, Larry
Thank you all for your
continuing efforts to bring a moral voice to
our state government. Only 6 more
legislative days left this session!
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Issued:
February 20, 2007
Keeping Member Info
Confidential
A friendly
reminder for those of you who are
passing our CAN emails on through your
own email networks:
To protect
the privacy and security of the members
of your CAN network, please be sure that
you are using the blind copy ("BC:")
function in your email program. By
using this, the email addresses of your
network members are kept confidential.
This also keeps your emails nice and
neat in that you don't have large
sections at the beginning of your email
listing everyone's name and address.
The blind
copy function should be right after the
carbon copy ("CC:") in your email
program. However, the default in some
programs is to have it hidden. For
example, if you are using Outlook
Express as your email program, you must
open a new email and then go under the
"View" menu and choose "All Headers" for
the "BC:" field to appear. In addition,
some programs require that there be an
email address in the "To:" field. In
other words, you can't just put everyone
in the "BC:" field and send it. The
best thing to do is to simply put your
own address in the "To:" field. This is
what I do when sending out the Action
Alerts.
If someone
happens to forget to use the blind copy,
and you receive an email with email
addresses or other information listed at
the beginning, please delete that part
of the email before forwarding it on to
your network members.
Thank you
all for taking this extra step to
protect those involved in CAN!
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Issued:
February 18, 2007
Last week,
HB 1293,
the abortion ban bill, made it out of the
House of Representatives with a vote of:
YEAS 45, NAYS 25.
Prior to the vote, in House State
Affairs, the bill was hoghoused, which means
that the entire bill was replaced with a new
bill. The new bill language did include
some of the original language; however,
there were also some significant changes.
The hoghoused bill was then amended on the
floor of the House to bring back in more of
the original language. Please read the
House of Representatives version
of the bill, which is the current language.
On Ash
Wednesday, February 21, 2007, at 7:45 a.m., HB
1293 will be
in
Senate State
Affairs.
Please contact the members of this committee
and urge them to vote "YES"
on HB
1293.
Abdallah,
Gene G.
Dempster,
Thomas A.
Gray, Bob
Hanson, Gary
D.
Heidepriem,
Scott N.
Knudson,
Dave
McCracken,
Royal "Mac"
Nesselhuf,
Ben
Olson, Ed
As we begin the Lenten
season, let us remember the vulnerable among us
in our prayers. Here is a link to
Pro-Life Stations of the Cross.
Lenten
Prayer
God of all
compassion, Father of all goodness, to
heal the wounds our sins and selfishness
bring upon us you bid us turn to
fasting, prayer, and sharing with our
brothers. We acknowledge our sinfulness,
our guilt is ever before us: when our
weakness causes discouragement, let your
compassion fill us with hope and lead us
through a Lent of repentance to the
beauty of Easter joy. Grant this through
Christ our Lord. Amen.
(Taken from
www.catholic-forum.com)
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Issued:
February 14, 2007
CAN Update & ACTION ALERT
Cross-over Day & Minimum Wage Bill (SB 207)
UPDATE
Friday is cross-over
day. That means that all bills must move
through the house of origin by the end of
the week. Please check the
CAN Bill List for an update on
all of the bills. Active bills appear in
white. If a bill has been killed, the
information on that bill will appear with a
gray background. Once a bill has made it
through the entire process and the Governor
signs it, it is highlighted in a light
orange color. (This color code is at the
top of the
CAN Bill List.)
You will notice that
several bills have failed to pass a
committee due to a majority vote to "defer
the bill to the 41st legislative day." The
committee can send a bill to the Senate or
House floor for debate with various
recommendations, including a "Do Pass" or a
"Do Not Pass" recommendation. Either of
these would still allow debate and a vote by
the full body. However, a committee can
"kill" a bill by deferring it to the 41st
legislative day, which is a day that does
not exist - there are only 40 days of
session this year. A committee can also
kill a bill by voting to "table" it, which
ends all debate.
However, even if a bill
has been killed in committee, it can still
be "smoked out" of committee by a 1/3 vote
of the full Senate or House. So we must
continue to watch even those bills that seem
to have been lost in committee. For more
information on the intricacies of this and
the rest of the legislative process, please
review the
Comprehensive Legislature Guide prepared
by the LRC.
If available, I have
added a link to the roll call vote for the
most recent action on each bill so that you
can see how the legislators voted. These
links will remain in the far right
"Committee/Chamber" column of the
CAN Bill List until the
bill is officially scheduled for another
hearing.
ACTION ALERT - Minimum Wage Bill (SB
207)
While not yet scheduled
for committee hearing, we anticipate that
SB 207, the
minimum wage bill, will be in House State
Affairs next week. Please contact the
members of this committee and urge them to
vote "YES" on
SB 207. The committee
members are:
Brunner,
Thomas J.
Cutler,
Joni M.
Deadrick,
Thomas J.
Dykstra,
Joel D.
Faehn,
Bob
Gillespie, Margaret V.
Hargens,
Dale
Krebs,
Shantel
Miles,
Kathy
Moore,
Garry A.
Rave,
Tim
Rhoden,
Larry
Turbiville, Charles M.
Thank you again for your
efforts this session.
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On Monday,
February 12, 2007 at 10:00 a.m.,
HB 1293,
the Women's Health and Human Life
Protection Act, is in
House State
Affairs.
Please contact the following committee
members and encourage them to vote "YES"
on
HB 1293:
Brunner, Thomas J.
Cutler, Joni M.
Deadrick, Thomas J.
Dykstra, Joel D.
Faehn, Bob
Gillespie, Margaret V.
Hargens, Dale
Krebs, Shantel
Miles, Kathy
Moore, Garry A.
Rave, Tim
Rhoden, Larry
Turbiville, Charles M.
While we usually wait until a bill is
scheduled to be heard by the entire body
before we ask you to contact all the
members, if you have time this weekend,
please contact the other
Representatives and also urge them to
support HB 1293. There are links to
Bishop Swain's Statement,
as well as a
Fact Sheet/Talking Points on
the CAN Website.
Most importantly, please
pray for God's directive hand through this
process, as our legislators discern what the
next legislative step should be to protect
the lives of our tiniest citizens and their
mothers. And no matter what happens
legislatively, let us never waiver in
our efforts to affirm His Gospel of Life,
both in our personal lives, and in the
public policies of our State and Nation.
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Legislative Research Council (LRC)
Website Features
The
Legislative Research Council (LRC)
Website is the most
comprehensive, accessible and user friendly
legislative site that I have ever seen.
Hopefully many of you have become familiar
with it by now. Please take advantage of
all it has to offer. Following is
information on a few of the features that we
use the most.
Listening to
Legislative Hearings
In general,
this icon  indicates
that there is either a live audio feed to a
hearing or that there is an audio recording
of the hearing available. Believe it or
not, you can listen to each and every
hearing live, right on your computer,
or later in a recorded format, by simply
clicking on this icon. If you find that
your computer does not automatically begin
connecting to and playing the audio, it is
probably because you do not have audio
software installed. If this is the
case, you can click on the following link to
download a free version of Real Player,
which is compatible with the audio format
used on the LRC website:
Free Real Player Download
If for some
reason this link doesn't work, go to
www.real.com and then select
the free basic player. (Be sure you are
selecting the free basic player, and not the
free download of the 14-day trial of their
premium player.) This program is much like
the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, but for audio
files. It is very safe and really is free.
However, be sure when you are installing it
that you un-check any boxes about receiving
emails, promotions, or reminders so that you
are not bothered by these in the future. If
you have any questions about this, please do
not hesitate to contact me.
To find live
links to hearings, go to the Current
Legislative Session Page of the
LRC Website. You will
find the live feeds to the Senate and the
House on this page. If you then choose
Chamber or Committee
from the menu, you will find another set of
links to the Senate and House broadcasts, as
well as the live feed links to all of the
committee hearings.
It is
also helpful to click on the date and time
link under the audio icon, as this will
provide you with the agenda or calendar for
the hearing, so you can see where the bill
you are interested is on the agenda. While
the committees try to follow their agendas,
there are times when they move bills up or
down the list for a variety of reasons.
Finally, to
listen to the hearings after they have taken
place, find the bill of interest in any
Bill List and click on
the bill number. The legislative history of
the bill will be listed for you, and the
audio links to each hearing on the bill are
found in the far right-hand column.
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Some of you have
contacted me because you have
been unable to access one or more of the
following documents on the CAN Website:
We have discovered
the problem, and have created new
documents that should be accessible by
everyone, no matter what version of
Acrobat Reader you have. Please let me
know if you are still unable to access
any of these documents online, or via
the links in this email. Thank you to
those of you who brought these problems
to my attention. If you ever have any
other troubles with the CAN Website or
links in emails in the future, please do
not hesitate to contact me.
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Issued:
February 5, 2007
Statement and Homilies
Available
On the
Home Page of the CAN
Website, you will also find in the "What's New?"
section, video and text links to Bishop Swain's
Mass for Life homily, as well as a text link to
his homily given at a Mass for legislators.
Please join us in prayer for
our government leaders throughout this
legislative session:
Prayer for
Government Leaders
God of power and might,
wisdom and justice,
through You authority is rightly administered,
laws are enacted, and judgment is decreed.
Assist with Your Spirit of counsel and fortitude
the Governor and government leaders of the State
of South Dakota.
May they always seek the ways of righteousness,
justice and mercy.
Grant that they may be enabled by your powerful
protection
to lead our State with honesty and integrity.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
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Death
Penalty Abolition Bills
Tomorrow, February
2, 2006, both death penalty
abolition bills are in committee.
SB 161, which was the
subject of our previous Action Alert, was
deferred from Monday, and will be heard at 7:45
a.m. If you have not yet contacted the
Senate State Affairs committee,
please do so, and urge the members to vote "YES"
on SB
161.
In addition,
HB 1195, a companion
abolition bill, is scheduled
for committee hearing in
House State Affairs at
10:00 a.m. Please also contact the following
committee members and urge them to vote "YES"
on
HB 1195:
For information on this
issue as it relates to Catholic teaching,
please visit the
Death Penalty South Dakota
page of the
CAN Website. Thank
you again for your attention to these bills
with such late notice.
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Tomorrow, January
29, 2007, at 7:45 a.m.,
SB 161, an Act to repeal
the death penalty and commute certain death
sentences to life imprisonment, will be heard in
Senate State Affairs.
Please contact the members of the committee
(listed below), and urge them to vote "YES" on SB
161. For information on this issue
as it relates to Catholic teaching, please visit
the
Death Penalty South Dakota
page of the
CAN Website.
Please remember to
personalize your email. We have
Advocacy Tips on the CAN
Website to help you. In addition,
you can learn more about each Legislator by
clicking on their names.
Additional legislator
contact information can be found on the
Contact Public Officials
page of the
CAN Website. We recommend
using the
Automated Webmail feature
of the
LRC Website. If you choose
to use this, remember that after you have sent
your email to the first legislator on the list,
you can hit the back button in your internet
browser, and the text of your message should
remain. Simply choose the next legislator's
name and hit send again. If you have any
questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
We apologize for the late
notice, and will try to provide you with at
least one full day to respond. We should also
have the
CAN Bill List up on the
website early this week. Things will continue
to move very quickly from this point on, so
please be sure to check your email and the
CAN Website regularly
throughout the rest of session. Thanks for all
your work!!!
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CAN & Respect Life Info Alert
I wanted to remind you of
the events taking place this Monday,
January 22, 2007. Please note that
the guest speaker at the Walk for Love & Life is
going to be Patti Giebink, OB/GYN, who once
performed abortions at the Sioux Falls Planned
Parenthood, but is now pro-life.
12:00 noon
Mass for Life
St. Joseph's Cathedral, Sioux Falls
6:30 pm
Walk for Love & Life
First Assembly of God Church
41st
Street, Sioux Falls
GUEST SPEAKER:
Former Abortionist, Patti Giebink
7:00 pm
Hour of Reflection
Capitol Rotunda, Pierre
Please publicize these
events in your parish or community, and try to
attend, as we reflect on how tragic the Roe v.
Wade decision has been for our country, and
what our future holds.
On a side note, I have
been working on our databases, and have added
several new names that somehow got missed, and had
to delete some that are regularly rejected. (If you
have an email address change, please remember to
forward your new one to me.) I have tried my best
to only include those persons who have shown an
interest in receiving regular correspondence from
our office. If that is not the case, please let me
know and I will take your name off our list right
away. (Also, for those of you who are members of a
parish Respect Life Committee, you may receive
direct emails from our office now, that may have
otherwise went through a Respect Life
Representative, your chairperson, or your CAN
Legislative Liaison. If you would like to only
receive correspondence through your parish contact,
let me know as well.) And for those who should have
been receiving correspondence before now, I
apologize for missing you!
And...the lack of a CAN
(Catholic
Advocate Network) Action Alert is in no
way a reflection of inactivity at the Capitol.
There is a lot going on, in many areas, so get ready
to contact your public officials!
Finally, we send out
our CAN alerts to all of our office email contacts
so that everyone can be informed of what is
happening legislatively, but we only expect that our
Legislative Liaisons are acting
on our alerts, and forwarding them on to their
parish or community networks. If you are not a
Liaison, but find that you have an interest in
grassroots lobbying of this nature, please let us
know, as we always welcome new CAN members. As
always, you can learn more about CAN on the
CAN Website.
Please remember our
state and national governments in your prayers. |
Below you will find information
on the following topics:
1. 2007 Legislative Session &
the Catholic Advocate Network (CAN)
2. DC Pilgrimage for Life
3. Other January 22 Events -
Correction to Bishop's Bulletin Info
2007 Legislative
Session & CAN
It's hard to believe we are
gearing up for another legislative session
already! The first day is next Tuesday, January
9, 2007.
For those of you who have
received our CAN correspondence in previous
years, you will find our approach and the email
and website formats similar. However, we have
redesigned the
CAN Website so that it can be updated, and
hopefully browsed, more easily. As always,
please email us with any problems you encounter
while using it, or with suggestions for
improvements, additions, etc. While it can be
viewed in other browsers, you will find that it
is best viewed using Internet Explorer.
We encourage you to become
familiar with the website before the start of
session, particularly the
South
Dakota Page, for this is where most of the
information relating to session will appear.
You will notice a separate
Contact Public Officials Page which now
contains the South Dakota and National contact
information together.
As in the past, we will
try to provide direct links to information
discussed in our Action Alert emails. These
links should appear in blue (or purple, if
accessed prior) and be underlined, as the
ones are above. (However, some email
programs may differ.) In addition, whenever
possible, attachments will be in PDF form.
If you encounter any problems with PDF
files, you may need to
update your version.
Please note that much
of our email and website work is done during
the evening, after the close of session, so
please be sure to check your email before
you turn in for the day. Thank you for your
continued efforts to help ensure that the
laws of our State are based on sound moral
principles and promote the dignity and
respect for all human life at all
stages. Please remember to pray for our
legislators and others involved in the
legislative process.
DC Pilgrimage
for Life - from Fr. Brian Simon
D.C. Pilgrimage for Life:
We are accepting registrations until
Jan. 8th.
Fr. Brian Simon, Fr. David Stevens, and Fr.
Doug Binsfeld are leading a pilgrimage to
the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., in
January 2007. The pilgrimage will include
participation in the annual March for Life
on Jan. 22nd as well as visits to
the Basilicas, shrines, memorials and other
sites in and around Washington. The group
will depart Aberdeen, the Clear Lake area
and Sioux Falls Thu., Jan. 18th
and return Fri., Jan. 26th. Cost
of the pilgrimage is $675 per person double
occupancy which includes hotels and bus
transportation.
For more information and registration,
contact St.
Mary’s Parish Office, P.O. Box
589, Clear Lake, SD (605-874-2080 or
triparish@itctel.com)
as soon as possible.
12:00 noon, Mass
for Life, St. Joseph’s Cathedral, Sioux Falls
6:30 pm, Walk for
Love & Life, First Assembly of God Church, 41st
Street, Sioux Falls
7:00 pm, Hour of
Reflection, Capitol Rotunda, Pierre
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