TDI-L Notes – Action Alert: The Coalition for Movie Captioning (CMC) needs your quick action.
We have a great opportunity to rapidly increase captioned movies in theaters
across the U.S.
A movie captioning amendment proposed by Senator Mark Dayton of Minnesota
was included in the Senate JOBS Act, which passed the Senate in May 2004.
Senator Dayton’s amendment would give a tax credit of 50% to both movie
studios and theaters for making captioned movies available, retroactive to
January 2004. Unfortunately the amendment was not included when the House
of Representatives passed its version of the bill last week.
The fate of the captioning amendment will be in the hands of a conference
committee, whose members are to be selected by the Senate Finance Committee
and House Ways and Means Committee. We need your help contacting four
members of Congress (listed below) who will be on the conference committee.
Please ask them to support the movie captioning amendment. Share your
personal stories about going to the movies to show them how important
captioned movies are to you.
A quick phone call can make a big difference. The calls are tallied by
staff and show how many people are concerned about an issue. Call either
the Washington office or one of their home offices.
Note that mail sent to Congress is now being irradiated and inspected, which
can slow down the delivery. Action on the trade bill may happen very
quickly, so please call, fax, or e-mail.
Sample Statement
Here’s a sample statement you can use when contacting any of the offices:
“I am contacting you to support the movie captioning credit amendment in the
Senate JOBS bill. Captioning for movies is important to me because …”
Who to Contact:
Rep. William Thomas of California
Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee (Republican)
2208 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515
MAIL: http://billthomas.house.gov/contact.asp
CALL: D.C. Office – 202-225-2915 V
Bakersfield – 661-327-3611 V
Atascadero – 805-549-0390 (S. County)
805-461-1034 (N.County)
FAX: D.C. Office – 202-225-8798
Atascadero – 805-461-1323
Rep. Charles Rangel of New York
Ranking member of the House (Democrat)
2354 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515
CALL: D.C. Office – 202-225-4365 V
New York – 212-663-3900 V
FAX: D.C. Office – 202-225-0816
Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa Chair, Senate Finance Committee (Republican)
(Accepted the captioning amendment in the managers’ package in the Senate; thank him and ask for his continued support during the conference agreement process)
135 Hart Senate Building, Washington, DC 20510
E-MAIL: http://grassley.senate.gov/webform.htm
CALL: D.C. Office: 202-224-3744 V
Cedar Rapids: 319-363-6832 V
Council Bluffs: 712-322-7103 V
Davenport: 563-322-4331 V
Des Moines: 515-288-1145 V
Sioux City: 712-233-1860 V
Waterloo: 319-232-6657 V
Senator Max Baucus of Montana
Ranking Member of Senate Finance Committee (Democrat)
(Accepted the captioning amendment in the managers’ package in the Senate; thank him and ask for his continued support during the conference agreement process)
511 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510
E-MAIL: http://baucus.senate.gov/emailmax.html
CALL: 800-332-6106 from Montana
D.C. Office: 202-224-2651 V
Billings: 406-657-6790 V
Bozeman: 406-586-6104 V
Butte: 406-782-8700 V
Great Falls: 406-761-1574 V;
Helena: 406-449-5480 V
Kalispell: 405-756-1150 V
Missoula: 406-329-3123 V
TTY: D.C. Office – 202-224-1998
Great Falls – 406-452-1117
FAX: D.C. Office – 202-224-4700
About CMC:
The Coalition for Movie Captioning (CMC), established in 1999, is a
consortium of major national organizations of deaf or hard of hearing people
addressing the theater access needs of 28 million deaf, hard of hearing,
late-deafened and deaf-blind consumers. CMC’s goal is for all first-run
movies to be accessible to people with hearing loss. The charter (founding)
members of CMC are the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf
and Hard of Hearing, the American Society for Deaf Children, the
Association of Late-Deafened Adults, the Cochlear Implant Association,
Inc., the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer Advocacy Network, Deaf
Seniors of America, the League for the Hard of Hearing, the National
Association of the Deaf, Self Help for Hard of Hearing People, Inc.,
and TDI.