Working during the Holiday

This past long-weekend in DC was full of celebrations and memorials of the immeasurable service and sacrifice that veteran's have given this country.  I tried to take as much of it in as possible during the weekend, though, because I didn't get a long weekend. I had work on Monday morning (no complaints though, because I love my job!)

Even getting into the office was crazy--because it was a federal holiday, the Metro was only running on weekend hours. The problem was that most offices downtown were still open. After waiting 20 minutes for a train at Union Station, just to have a train approach that was too full to get on, I gave up on the idea of taking my usual red line route to work, paid my exit fare, and got on a bus.  Traffic, of course, was nuts, so despite leaving the Congressional at 8:30, I didn't get to work until around 9:45. I had a quick meeting with a supervisor, followed by our weekly staff meeting, held teleconference style with our writer, PR firm, and New York Headquarters. The meeting took longer than usual because we're about to enter what we here at NCJW refer to as the "post-election" session, but is more widely known as the "lame duck" session of the 112th Congress. With the fiscal slope (or cliff, as you may have heard) approaching, we had a lot to talk about on our call. We're a multi-issue organization so we have a lot of issues important to us at stake in sequestration.  Programs that do so much good like Medicare, WIC, SNAP, housing subsidies, and school lunches, could be on the chopping block, sadly.

I helped draft this email which was sent to our 90,000 member network

Even beyond the budget, there are a lot of bills that need our attention in the post-election session.  I've gotten to work a bit with our coalition partners this week on advocacy relating to the NDAA and in particular the Shaheen Amendment, which would open the full range of pregnancy related coverage to servicewomen and their families. This week I also drafted an Action Alert, asking our to contact their representatives in Washington in favor of reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

Monday, wasn't all work though. At NCJW, we LOVE celebrating holidays (see my post about pumpkin carving) so we had to start planning our annual Kwa-nnukah-mas party! After 20 minutes of discussion we finally have a date, a location, and our Secret Hannah (NCJW was founded by Hannah G. Solomon) all organized!

Even though I didn't get to have Veteran's Day off, I got a lot of work done!

Leah Apothaker
Legislative Intern, National Council of Jewish Women