The most important part about peace work is not what you do, but rather how the work affects others. This became apparent to me when, after hearing who we were, a legislative receptionist told us that "Jim will be right out" to meet with us. After a couple of minutes, Massachusetts Representative James McGovern emerged and expressed his continued commitment to the resolution (HR-808) for a U.S. Department of Peace. What made this even more notable is that all four of us on the Press for Peace team were from Maryland with little to no relationship with Massachusetts (I went to college there; another woman has a relative living there). Nonetheless, Representative McGovern spent a few minutes out of his busy day to talk with us and to go over the list of co-sponsors to see who he might be able to encourage joining in co-sponsorship of the bill.

 

Another memorable part of the “press day” involved an hour-long meeting with one of Representative John Sarbane’s legislative assistants. Representative Sarbanes of the 3rd district of Maryland is not yet a co-sponsor of the bill. The majority of the meeting consisted of promoting his co-sponsorship of the bill on its merits. The aide was fairly new to the office, and it was interesting to see how the five of us in the meeting were able to pique his interest, hopefully to a level that will result in his persuading the Congressman to join the legislation. Members of the Maryland Peace Alliance plan to follow up with this meeting (and previous ones with other aides) by meeting directly with Representative Sarbanes next month. The most significant part of the meeting to me was the amount of time the aide spent with us and how he devoted his full attention to the issue.