From June 2001 NASW NEWS
Copyright ©2001, National Association of Social Workers, Inc.

First Legislative Session Sees Advances

Sen. Tom Harkin Rep. Marge Roukema

Sen. Tom Harkin, Rep. Marge Roukema back school counseling.

NASW has been involved in a variety of lobbying and legislative efforts.

During the first session of the 107th Congress, NASW has advocated expanding school social work services, improving mental health and substance abuse treatment and child protective services, ensuring economic equity and voting rights and providing HIV treatment services.

Priorities. Among NASW's legislative priorities:

  • Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Improvement Act — Introduced in March in the Senate (S. 620) by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and in April in the House (H.R. 1508) by Rep. Marge Roukema (R-N.J.), these bills reauthorize the Elementary School Counseling Demonstration Act and expand the program to secondary schools. Grants are provided to local school districts to hire school social workers and other school-based mental health professionals to provide comprehensive counseling services. NASW worked closely with the bills' sponsors before introduction and sent letters to all members of the House and Senate asking them to cosponsor the bills. Government Relations Action Alerts were e-mailed to association "listservs" and posted on NASW's World Wide Web site, with links to Congress Web for NASW member advocacy. NASW is pushing to incorporate the bills into larger bills that reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Better Education for Students and Teachers Act (S. 1) and the No Child Left Behind Act (H.R. 1).

[Since Congress Web's April debut, more than 1,600 members have visited NASW's new online advocacy tool, sending over 400 letters to members of Congress regarding the Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Improvement Act.]

  • The Treatment on Demand Assistance Act (S. 160) — Introduced in January by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the bill provides grant assistance to states to expand and establish drug abuse treatment programs to increase capacity for public and nonprofit private entities to provide effective treatment for substance abuse. NASW sent a letter of support for the bill to Boxer.
  • Child Protection Services Improvement Act (H.R. 1371) — Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) in April introduced this bill to provide grants to states to improve their child welfare work forces. Grants could be used to improve education, training, supervision and salaries, to lower caseloads and to provide student loan forgiveness for child welfare staff. NASW participated in drafting the legislation and sent Stark a letter of support. At press time, the bill had 24 cosponsors.
  • Fair Pay Act (S. 684) — Introduced in March by Sen. Harkin, this bill would amend the Fair Labor Act of 1938 to prohibit wage discrimination on the basis of sex, race and national origin. NASW has targeted members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which has primary jurisdiction, to cosponsor the legislation.

Other Bills. Other legislation NASW has advocated:

  • The Bipartisan Patient Protection Act — Introduced in the Senate (S. 238) by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and in the House (H.R. 526) by Reps. Greg Ganske (R-Iowa) and Cal Dooley (D-Calif.), this legislation requires health care providers to offer consumers more treatment options and greater access to patient information and restricts interference by health care plans in a doctor-patient relationship. This bill is the most recent version of patients' rights legislation. At press time, it had 24 Senate cosponsors and 133 House cosponsors.
  • Equal Protection of the Voting Rights Act — Introduced in March in the Senate (S. 565) by Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and in the House (H.R. 1170) by Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), this bill amends the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to outline requirements for equal protection of voting rights in federal, state and local elections.
  • The Racial Prohibition Act (H.R. 965) — Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) introduced this bill in March to require states to adopt and enforce standards that prohibit racial profiling.

In Coalition. NASW has also advocated legislatively as a member of several coalitions:

  • Paycheck Fairness Act — Introduced in February in the House (H.R. 781) by Rep. Rosa Delauro (D-Conn.) and in January in the Senate (S. 77) by Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), this bill focuses on reparations for victims of wage discrimination. NASW is working with the National Committee on Pay Equity on this issue.
  • AIDS appropriations — The National Organizations Responding to AIDS (NORA), of which NASW is a member, advocated AIDS appropriations for FY 2002 above and beyond what the president's budget offers, targeting what NORA believes to be "necessary spending levels to assure an appropriate federal response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic."
  • Mental health appropriations — NASW as a member of the Mental Health Liaison Group (MHLG) has produced an annual set of recommended appropriations levels for mental health services funded through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and research programs at the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and National Institute of Mental Health. MHLG's budget recommendations are part of an effort to address the unmet need for mental health and substance abuse treatment services and are distributed widely to legislators and other decision makers.

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