Senate Committee Passes the ALS Registry Act!!!

November 14, 2007

We are thrilled to tell you that earlier today, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee unanimously passed the ALS Registry Act (S. 1382) by a bipartisan voice vote!  This is yet another victory for advocates across the country and comes just less than a month after the House of Representatives passed their version of the bill by a 411-3 vote. The bill is now cleared for consideration by the full Senate, nearly the final stage of the legislative process!

The Committee's action is a testament to the effectiveness of our strategic outreach, as some Members of the Committee have previously blocked action on many other disease-specific health bills.  In order to move the bill through the Committee as quickly as possible, the Advocacy Department launched a coordinated and focused campaign that included broad outreach to the entire Senate, such as the first-ever national "Call for a Cure."  Our goal was to obtain 60 cosponsors, a level of support that could not be ignored by the Committee.  We are pleased to say that advocates had even more success, as 66 Senators had cosponsored the bill prior to today's vote!

We targeted individual Committee Members, working with both grassroots and grasstops advocates to build support on the Committee and commitments from Members to vote for the ALS Registry Act.  We worked behind the scenes with the bill sponsors, Harry Reid (D-NV) and John Warner (R-VA), as well as with the Committee staff and the staff of individual Senators to address specific concerns and secure bipartisan cooperation.  And we also joined with Senators Reid and Warner to provide a "walk through" briefing specifically for each Committee Member's staff.  In the end, the combined efforts of the entire ALS community produced results this morning: unanimous bipartisan support to pass the bill and take one more step closer to enacting the ALS Registry Act!!

During today's session, the Committee made minor changes to the bill to conform to previous legislation that has moved through the Senate and to add language to require that the Department of Health and Human Services provide a report to Congress on its work on disease registries.

The Advocacy Department would like to thank the efforts of all ALS Association Chapters and advocates for helping to move this important legislation forward, particularly those in states whose Senators sit on the HELP Committee, such as Massachusetts and Wyoming, the states served by Chairman Ted Kennedy and Ranking Member Mike Enzi.  Advocates from South Carolina, Illinois, Utah, Minnesota, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Alaska, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Maryland, Georgia, Mississippi and many others also did a tremendous job telling the ALS story and making ALS a must pass priority for each Committee Member.

As the ALS Registry Act continues to moves forward, we will keep you updated on the latest activity and will let you know what else you can do to help enact the ALS Registry Act this year - when your advocacy can make the most difference.

In the meantime, please continue to reach out to your Senators.  We still have more work to do!  Help us build even more support for the ALS Registry Act, by contacting your Senators TODAY using the Advocacy Action Center of our website.

If you have any questions or would like additional information, please contact the Advocacy Department at advocacy@alsa-national.org.