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: