Action Alert from Acting Executive Director Matthew Palevsky

Hey Everyone.

The following is a quick note from SSDP's National Acting Executive Director, Matthew Palevsky. This is an opportunity to do something simple, from your house, at work, in the park, at the coffeeshop, or anywhere else where you can afford less than two minutes of your time to make a quick phonecall. You can find your representative's phone number by entering your zip code at the bottom of this page.

Keep up the good fight!
Kat

Over the past year you all have scored some huge national victories. Not least among them helping to convince our long-time opponent Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) to scale back the HEA Aid Elimination Penalty that he created over a decade ago.

As you probably already know, in September 2009, The House of Representatives passed the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA), which included language that would repeal the Aid Elimination Penalty for students convicted of drug possession offenses.

Since we know that many distribution cases are pleaded down to simple possession, this change will reinstate financial aid to a large number of students who would otherwise be affected by Souder's amendment.

Last week Congress was poised to include the entirety of the SAFRA legislation into the health care reconciliation bill, including our provision. But I have some unfortunate news. According to the rules of the now famous reconciliation process, amendments that directly change policy, as ours does, are subject to votes that require a 60 percent majority. So, in the eleventh hour, our amendment was taken out of the bill for procedural reasons.

The good news is that this turn of events does not represent a lack of political will on the part of our allies in Congress . With leading Democrats devoted to changing this horrible provision - and with your letters and phone calls - I still believe we will successfully amend the Aid Elimination Penalty by the end of 2010. We'll need to keep up the pressure, but I have every confidence that these recent events only delayed our inevitable victory.

Sincerely,

Matthew Palevsky

Acting Executive Director

Students for Sensible Drug Policy