Legislative Update:
In recent weeks advocates were excited to learn that both
chambers’ versions of budget reconciliation include
changes to the HEA drug provision. Though this dramatically
changed our time-line for influencing the process, it
does signal that Congress is increasingly likely to scale
back the drug provision in the near future.
The House version of budget reconciliation, H.R. 4241,
which passed the floor on November 18, contains the “Souder
proposal” to change the drug provision. This change
would end the “reach-back” effect of the drug
provision, meaning that persons who are not in school
and receiving financial aid at the time of their conviction
would no longer be affected. However, students would continue
to lose financial aid due to drug convictions.
The Senate version of budget reconciliation, S. 1932,
passed the floor on November 3 and contains the same language
as was included in the Senate version of HEA reauthorization.
The change would end the “reach-back” effect
for persons convicted of drug possession offenses, but
not sales. Additionally, the bill also states that the
Secretary of Education shall not require students to provide
information about a student’s drug possession.
Since both versions of budget reconciliation have already
passed the floor, we are now waiting to see who will be
named to be on the conference committee. We are hoping
that conferees will be named in the first week of December.
The Second Chance Act, S. 1934 and H.R. 1704, is also
moving through the legislative process with little opposition.
Both versions of the legislation also contain the Souder
proposal or an elimination of the “reach-back”
effect. While forced to take a back seat to indictments,
hurricane relief, and controversial court appointments,
proponents are still hopeful that the Second Chance Act
will become law early next year. The House bill has 93
co-sponsors (35 Republicans) and the Senate bill has 11
(5 Republicans).
Mobilizing our Support:
CHEAR has been working on a number of items since the
beginning of October to try and mobilize our support to
encourage Congress to enact the best possible changes
as part of the above-mentioned legislative developments.
In addition to mobilizing our support in this legislative
process, we have also been working on our state-by-state
report on state financial aid eligibility for students
with drug convictions, preparing for and attending the
2005 International Conference on Drug Policy Reform, seeking
out potential plaintiffs for an ACLU lawsuit, and preparing
for a speaking tour and state lobbying effort in Florida.
One item we have focused on is contacting Presbyterian
ministers and university presidents in Tennessee. Both
Senators Frist and Alexander are Presbyterian. We have
been sending pastors
and university
presidents packets of information about the drug provision
and encouraging them to contact their Senators and talk
to members of their congregation about the HEA drug provision.
Currently CHEAR is working on organizing existing partners
to sign on to a group sign-on letter to be distributed
to the members of the budget reconciliation conference
committee. This letter
was prepared in collaboration with numerous CHEAR partners,
including SSDP, ACLU, FAVOR, CSDP, and the ABA. We are
incorporating all final edits and seeking sign-ons until
December 14th, at which point we will do a Hill drop with
this and other materials. The letter is also being used
to reach out to new potentially supportive organizations.
CHEAR distributed a holiday
action alert encouraging supportive organizations
and persons to contact their members of Congress in their
district office over the holiday break. Hillary Shelton
of the NAACP presented this idea and we think that it
will provide our supporters with a useful way to weigh
in at an effective time. Not only are members more likely
to be home over the holiday break and hear directly from
their district staff about incoming calls, but they are
also about to deal with the drug provision. We’re
encouraging supporters to set up meetings and call in
all week long.
Finally, we are also organizing a letter-a-day campaign
in which each organization involved in the campaign will
send a personalized letter to the members of the conference
committee on a designated day. We hope to arrange for
30 to 50 organizations to submit an argument specifically
tailored to their concerns about the drug provision in
the weeks preceding the final vote on budget reconciliation.
The NAACP is the first group signed up to submit their
letter.
HEA in the Media:
There has been considerable coverage of the HEA Drug Provision
in recent weeks, including: