Transcript follows:
ISNA CONFERENCE:
[NOTE: MICROPHONE RUSTLES PERIODICALLY, OBSCURING SOME AUDIO]
RHEEMA DODIN:
Salaam alekum. [CROWD MURMURING] Welcome to Legislative Advocacy. It’s like a [UNCLEAR] you should head to another direction. You’ve chosen well. I think this will be a really great session. And it goes very well with the theme of this weekend’s overall program. And I’m glad to see there’s so many women here. Inshallah [UNCLEAR] My name is Rheema Dodin. I work for Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. And I work in [RUSTLING] so we’ll [RUSTLING] the Q and A [UNCLEAR] I think that’s what advocacy’s all about. So the beautiful thing about congress is that it’s the [FAINT VOICES] Hello–I’m sorry, sir, who are you? [FAINT VOICES] Oh, okay. [FAINT VOICES] Welcome. It is the purest expression of government by the people, for the people. And it’s sort of, you know, your tax dollars in a very [UNCLEAR] way. And there are offices in every district. And these are definitely people that work for you and are responsive to you. And so we’re very excited today cause we’re going to go into more detail about how you an access those resources and make your opinion known and also get help with some–in very practical ways from your congressional and senate offices. So what we’re going to do, we’ll start with our first speaker, Mr. Assad Akhter. Assad currently serves as legislative director for Bill Pascrell from New Jersey. He’s also president of the congressional advocacy staff association. He also manages the legislative portfolio for the Homeland Security Committee he’s represented. He’s worked on staff in several campaigns and was fundamental to the campaigns of Keith Ellison and Andre Carson. And in 2005, he worked directly with New Jersey AFL-CIO helping to elect Governor Corzine. So [UNCLEAR] [APPLAUSE]
ASSAD AKHTER:
Thanks so much for that introduction, Rheema. I actually, I wish I could do an introduction for Rheema cause she’s really a, our, one of our fearless leaders on Capitol Hill on the senate side. She would tell you that she’s on the leadership staff for Senator Durbin, who’s the assistant, assistant majority leader–so she’s basically on the floor staff, telling senators how to vote everyday. [UNCLEAR] talk a little more [UNCLEAR] But [RUSTLING] I can give you as far as legislative advocacy and what you can do [UNCLEAR] it’s not that hard. It’s really not that hard. It seems like, you know, I’m a common citizen or I’m [UNCLEAR] or where does [UNCLEAR] how do we get to, you know, our legislators, how do I get to my congressman? How do I get to my senator? You know, my governor. How do I get to–how do I get things done, how do I, you know, change things? It’s really not that hard. [RUSTLING] and I think the perspective they wanted me to give all of you as far as how you can meet with your members of congress and how to [RUSTLING] a lower level. Because we’ve been emphasizing a lot, we’ve had this commitment to doing a, political and [UNCLEAR] and one of the lessons that’s kind of around all this is local, local, local. All politics is local. And it’s very involved. And so the one place I want to start is [RUSTLING] for every concern, there’s a member of congress. Don’t assume that that’s where you have to go for every meeting, where you have to go for every cause. Let’s just say you have a [UNCLEAR], you know, and you want to expand your [RUSTLING] let’s just say. And that’s your concern. The right place to go isn’t your congressman. Because your congressman will tell you, oh, that’s great, I support you, it’s great. But he’s really not going to, or he or she’s not going to be able to do [RUSTLING] the person who will, the person who will effect a change most there is your mayor, your local city councilman, your zoning board, these are the kind of people that make that difference. So when it comes to that, when it comes to meeting your local officials, you need to always, you need to never have the attitude that these people are somehow not high enough for you, for any cause, local cause. Having those people on your side, making a relationship with those people, is very critical. So whether you have a muzhdid [PH], whether you have an organization, or you’re just a concerned citizen, you should develop a relationship with your local city council, with your mayor, with your state elected officials, you know, with your state capitol, all these people, your state elected, your state representatives, they all have local offices, they will meet with you. These people will meet with you if you call and ask for a meeting. That’s [RUSTLING] members of congress [RUSTLING] and it works the same way for everybody. Call the office and ask for who handles the schedule. That’s basically the way it works to start. Every office, small or large, has somebody who handles the schedule. Obviously, the smaller the office, the less staff they have. But like a member of congress, has a dedicated schedule, at least one, if not more. One maybe for the district, one for the local. But just call the main number Call the office, you don’t need a direct connection, call and ask who handles the schedule. That’s how you, that’s the first step in [UNCLEAR] So now you’ve done this. Let’s say now you have a concern. Let’s say you have an organization, let’s say you have a cause that you want to talk about. We had a great group of individuals, the American Muslim Health Professionals, came by Capitol Hill last week or two weeks ago and wanted to talk about health reform and the need for health reform and give it that Muslim perspective. And they wanted meetings. And they met with a number of people. So let’s say you’re a group like them, you’re not established enough to have a huge presence. But you have a dedicated group of people who want to come for meetings. So now you call the scheduler and you set up a meeting. Now, one of the critical factors towards getting a meeting–the number one criteria for getting a meeting, the number one way to get into an office is having a local impact. Is, if you are a constituent of somebody, if you’re from their district, in other words [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] so, call again, go to where you have the most impact, go to where–don’t just aim, you know, don’t just aim for majority leader. Or for, you know, I know so-and-so and they’re really great on this. Or even, you know, our Muslim representatives, Keith Ellison and Andre Carson [PH] say, oh, you know, [UNCLEAR] we got to go see them. That’s absolutely great. But chances are, they already agree with you. Or they already side with you. But what about the person who represents your backyard? How does that person feel? That person will want a meeting with you because I’ll say again, I have constituent so-and-so from–they want a meeting, I probably better take it otherwise I might hear about it later from somebody. So they’ll probably set up that meeting. Okay. So if you have a group of ten people, well that’s ten different representatives for each of you to get meetings with. And set it up. And maybe that point that I’m a constituent and I need to have a meeting. So now you have that meeting. Now, the second point is if you were coming to Washington for such a meeting, don’t be perturbed in any way that you’re meeting with staff instead of the congressman or the congresswoman. Because staff are the ones, quite honestly, pictures with–I mean, meetings with members of congress often devolve into [UNCLEAR] is that members of congress come in they go, oh, hey, so-and-so, great to see you, it’s so nice, oh, it’s great that you’re here, we appreciate everything that you’re saying, they put a big arm around you and they take a picture and you put it up on your wall and everybody feels good and at the end of the day, nothing’s accomplished as far as the issue that you were there for. And that’s kind of what–they love to take a picture and then put it out. That’s a common tactic. You don’t want that. What you want is a meeting with someone who cares about the issues that you’re talking about. So if you’re going to meet with staff, [UNCLEAR] whether it’s health care, whether it’s foreign policy, whether it’s an investigation that you’re handling, that person, that staffer, [UNCLEAR] issue with that staffer also doesn’t want to get [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] constituents and they give you a bad meeting, they don’t want, they worry about that, they don’t want to hear about it back home in the district. So they’re very worried about that. So you always have to, again, keep it back to the local [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] Now, another [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] talk about [RUSTLING] is if you are local, let’s say you have a local organization, let’s say I have a local Muslim organization in our district. Or local ethnic organization in the district back home. We do most of our work back home. Okay? You don’t need to come to Washington for a meeting. You really don’t. It feels nice. It seems nice. You can take a picture. You can dress up [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] community newsletter, [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] but less so than what you would get back home. Because all these members of congress have different–and senators, too–have district offices. They have district offices right back at home. And it’s on their website. Or if you call the number, they’ll tell you where it is. They have district offices back home that have full staff, they have full staffs back home. And those staffs are even more responsive than the staffs, generally more responsive than the staffs in Washington. Because staffs in Washington care more about national issues, larger issues. The staffs back home only care about what’s going on at home. They do constituent services. They do other such things. So building a relationship with these people back home is critical. These people are very accessible. These people do your constituent work [UNCLEAR] deal with the immigration problem. These are people who deal with it. If you have a veterans’ problem. If you have, you know, you’re having a problem with local officials, your local government. These are the people to deal with. These are the people who are paid to do your constituent services. These are the people you need to develop a relationship with and you can easily talk to. And so that’s a very key part. Get a meeting with people on the staff, get a meeting with the congressman when he’s back home. There’s a good chance he might be able to meet you back home where he wouldn’t be able to meet with you in Washington. And you can, again, address concerns. You can invite the members of the staff or members of congress to your events. To your things back home. Again, cause back home, they care a lot more than, oh, yeah, we’re having a big conference out in San Jose and my representative’s from, you know, Illinois. Well, you know, they’re not going to come out there. But they might come–but if it’s in the backyard, chances are they’ll come, again, because they want visibility. They know you count as a vote. They know you count as a constituent. So always relate it to your representative and to the person, what they [UNCLEAR] so now, and now we’ve all talked–we’ve spent a lot of time, and I’ve probably spent too much time about how to give a meeting. That’s a very critical part, because people think it’s too hard or I have to do this–you know, it’s a lot more varied. But now that you have the meeting, what do I do once I get to this meeting? Again, the critical question you have to ask is why does this representative, why does this person care about the issue I’m talking about? They don’t just care because I care. They don’t just care because it’s very important to me for, you know, this is a great cause, this is a good cause, or this is just or this is right. Well, it doesn’t always work out that way. What you see as just or right or very important, somebody else sees as just another [UNCLEAR] Or maybe they disagree with you. So you have to relate it to why they should care. You have to relate it to why this is important. And you also have to relate a few issues–you know, in our community I think we’ve had the problem of, we have a long tradition of [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] and we just want to [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] we’re mad about this, we’re mad about this, we’re mad about this, and they look at the person and they expect them to respond with, you know, with answers. But that’s not the way it works. Come in with two, three issues that you care about. You know, two, three solid sets of issues. And I think brother Corey can talk more about this from the perspective of somebody coming in. But, you know, as staffers, the main thing to us is these people had dedicated issues, they came with a few materials, not–don’t give them a book, don’t give them, cause those go straight to trash. Don’t give them. Don’t give them a video. Just give them one page, you know, one page, maybe two at most, whatever–lined out. Issue one, issue two, issue three. And then, most important, tell them what you want or need. What do you want them to do? Again, don’t give them an issue that, this issue here which is so big and so important, like if you come in and say, you know, like health reform, you come in and say, we want health reform, we want health reform, we want health care. Well that’s good and that’s decent. But again, that’s a huge issue. And your representative will say, yeah, we’re dedicated to that. But if you say, no, I want a public option. Or I want, you know, I’m against the public option. Or whatever, if you say, I want this, then they have to give you an answer or they have a lot more time, you know, to try to dodge it or whatever. You want specific, well, I need you to write me a letter. Or I need you to sign on to this bill. Or I need you to talk against this bill. Or I need you–say exactly what you need or what you want. And make it very clear and hold them accountable to it. You follow the staff, you follow. So, you have to [UNCLEAR] [LAUGHTER] I know, this is the note like, wrap it up already. But anyway, being a congressman and having too much time is not usually the case. But so the point is, is have a clear set of goals, have a clear agenda, and have a clear end goal as to what you want. You know, maybe it’s something attainable. And also, don’t make it just these things that are very hard and difficult. Give them something easy to do. You know, develop that relationship. Do something that’s, you know, easy, oh, that’s not a problem for me. I can do that and they’ll feel that there’s this kind of relationship there, like, okay, [RUSTLING] I’ve just done something for them, they feel grateful to me, you’ve developed that rapport. Don’t just make it like, well, I don’t like what you’ve done to this. I don’t like [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] political. You know, maybe you are a Republican in a Democratic district. Or a Democrat in a Republican district. Or you’re an independent. Or whatever you are. Maybe you hate the position that so-and-so holds. Okay. Maybe that’s the case. But that representative, some of these aren’t partisan, so maybe you hate the way they view every political issue, legislative issue. But you need, you know, again, you need something done locally, right? Well, if you have a good relationship or a friendly relationship with them well you say, well, I don’t agree with you on this, but we’re still, we still have a good relationship, maybe they’ll be willing to do something for you locally. So don’t approach this as if it’s an adversarial thing. You have to approach it as a relationship, but have defined goals, have defined things. And, you know, have a game plan towards this. And keep it in small groups and diversify the groups as much as possible. So we can go on and on on this and we have two other speakers [UNCLEAR] and I hope that you all take the initiatives to get these meetings going. [APPLAUSE]
RHEEMA DODIN:
[RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] and good morning, again, for newcomers. Salaam alekum. So the following [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] Now we’re going to move to Suhail, who [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] sort of a larger view of [UNCLEAR] currently. [UNCLEAR] majority party. [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] advocacy. [UNCLEAR] Suhail is a political and government affairs consultant. Experience serving on Capitol Hill, the executive branch, including the White House, political campaigns, on the boards of various advocacy organizations. He served as policy director and press secretary for US congressman Tom Campbell from California. And in 2000, he aided the White House office of public liaison for the president’s outreach to conservative, military, veteran [UNCLEAR] communities. From 2002 to 2009, he served in the US department of transportation in various capacities including legal counsel. He currently serves on the board of the American Conservative Union, the [UNCLEAR] Republican Council, and several other issues. He recently led a delegation of American evangelical faith leaders to Syria, participated in an interfaith delegation with Israel and Palestine. [UNCLEAR] thank you–[APPLAUSE]
SUHAIL KHAN:
Thank you, Rheema. Thanks for the introduction. Great to be here with my brothers, Corey and Assad. Good morning. Salaam alekum, salah. This is much more of a how-to session. So I’ll try to keep it very practical and you can use some examples of how each of you can really effectuate positive policy, both on a local level as brother Assad mentioned, and on the national level. [RUSTLING] perhaps if we’re effective doing that on an international level when it comes to effecting policies for the United States that has a role, and when the United States affects the lives of so many people, indeed, here in the United States and around our globe. Just a word before I start, we have some really talented people here and I’m honored to be a part of that. Assad is the president of the congressional research staff [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] It’s a group of about fifteen Muslim staffers and in summertime, it grows to about seventy-plus staff with the interns. And I have to say [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] there is a core group of Muslim staffers on the hill who in their extra time after they do the work that they do for their members of congress, who put in that extra time, in any case, it’s a lot of time to keep the organization running, to keep reaching out to Muslims as they come on the hill, to offer advice to young Muslims on how to get careers, on how to get jobs on the hill. And then just the logistics of keeping the [UNCLEAR] running, that we have in the US Capitol here in Washington, D.C., please come to the prayers and it’s brothers like us, there’s a handful, you can count them on one hand, and that’s, we know that, from people who are organized in your local masajids [PH] in your local communities, that there’s, you have a large community that’s always the same people that are doing the work and brother Assad and sister Rheema are, they’re that core group that keep everything going and growing, so I really want to say, express my gratitude to them and let you know that they’re our leaders, our current leaders and it’s a matter of time, particularly for us that I know of in New Jersey, that will be –[APPLAUSE] [UNCLEAR]
MAN:
–started all of this way back before–
SUHAIL KHAN:
[OVERLAP] Yeah, we were–
MAN:
–grade school, but–[LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE] Capitol Hill [UNCLEAR]
SUHAIL KHAN:
No, but–
MAN:
[UNCLEAR] White House and Capitol Hill and–
SUHAIL KHAN:
These guys are out there [OVERLAPPING VOICES] Anyway, it’s not the mutual admiration society [LAUGHTER] I’ll tell you a story. When I came to Capitol Hill, and it wasn’t a long time ago before cars and trains and [LAUGHTER] but, there was a, some sister that came and was literally going door to door of different offices. She was a Muslim sister like many in this room. You know, full scarf and, you know, identifiably Muslim, and she was going from office to office, trying to advocate for stopping the use of secret evidence. She was an immigrant. She didn’t speak perfect English. And many of us know now, unfortunately, post-9/11, the tragedy that was, compounded with the tragedy of 9/11, was the tragedy of having our civil liberties, the huge blow towards our US Constitution that occurred post-9/11. But before 9/11, in the mid-nineties, there were about twenty-four Muslims that were being held under what was called secret evidence. And this is evidence that is proffered to the government, oftentimes from foreign governments, without any opportunity for that person to, when they are arrested, to know what their charges are, to know what evidence is being used to hold them, and not even them nor their attorney have access to that evidence. This is a problem that goes back to the time of, morally, the time of Jesus, when the religious leaders were coming to Pontius Pilate and said we need to try Jesus for heresy. Even Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, said we don’t try people without giving the tried, giving the accused the ability to confront their accusers. And yet, in the mid-nineties, under the then-attorney general, then-president, there were, twenty-four Muslims were being held, and one of the family members of one of those Muslims that was being held, in exasperation, was going door to door to congress, trying to see if they could get some kind of a change in the law. So that Muslims could at least confront their accusers so that at least their attorney could have their day in court, to at least have a hearing. Much less try get a release for these Muslims who they felt were innocent. And so they were in this legal black hole. And this sister heard that there was a Muslim staffer–she was from Florida–and she heard there was a Muslim staffer working for a member of congress. From California. A Republican member of congress. So she just walked in and she met with me and she explained the situation to me and just as brother Assad described so eloquently, she was very brief, she just gave me the facts on a sheet, or a piece of paper, and described the situation. I listened and I asked a few questions. And I said, let me look into this, let me check with the Department of Justice to see what the situation is, because, you know, while I trusted her fully, I wanted to get the full story. And to see what was happening here. Because it sounded very incredible. I had heard about the situation, but I really wanted to find more about, more. So I did. From her, I got her information, I said I will follow up with you. It was a very brief meeting. Not more than fifteen, twenty minutes. I followed up with the Department of Justice. I got the information and confirmed exactly what she had told me. And then, before I went to my boss, I was, I had just come out of law school, and my boss, in addition to being a member of congress, was also a professor of law at Stanford. So he was very legally-minded. He was a Constitutional law professor. So he was very familiar with these issues. [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] Constitutional framework. And I called a professor at Georgetown law school. David Cole [RUSTLING [UNCLEAR] And I explained it to him and I said, you know, Professor Cole, you don’t know me, but I’m a legislative aide for a member of California and I want to get your take as to this. What is the legal framework? What’s being, what’s happening here? And so he was very generous with his time in giving me the legal information. And I wrote a memo. Two page memo. To the congressman. And writing, I quoted, I remember this, this line from Pontius Pilate, who came to the trial of Jesus. And I basically recommended, I said, look, we need to introduce legislation. The way that we can fix this problem is that we need to introduce legislation that will provide people the right to confront their accusers, to know what the charges are, etceteras. And so I met with the congressman. We would have a daily meeting to go over issues, to go over the votes for the next day. And I explained the situation to him. And because I had done my homework, because we had the facts, he said, Suhail, this is something I want to do. Let’s introduce legislation, let’s begin drafting. So we began, we drafted a bill and then from a practical matter, he, Congressman Campbell is a Republican, but I knew he had to be bipartisan, so I began reaching out to people’s offices that I knew he had a relationship on both sides of the aisle, to David Banyer [PH] who no longer is in congress, and was a great champion for Muslim-American issues from Michigan. He was our Democrat. I reached out to Bob Barr, who then was a congressman from Georgia, very conservative. My boss was considered a moderate. So I reached out to a very conservative Republican from the South, Bob Barr. He joined us as an early cosponsor. Bernie Sanders, who now is the senator from Vermont, but is an independent, actually a socialist member of congress. He was the only socialist in the house. Now in the senate. He joined us. So we put together this coalition. Socialist, conservative Republican, moderate Republican, moderate Democrat, liberal Democrats, John Conyers joined us. And we introduced this bill that basically said anybody arrested in the United States, a) should know what their arrest is for, and b) should know what the charges are and c) they or their attorney, if there’s a national security concern, you can have an attorney who’s cleared with the CPO with a top-secret clearance, should have the ability to look at the evidence and to confront the evidence and confront the accusers. And that, I want to give you that example of how one person can make a difference if they know how to effectuate the process. How to talk to people, present the facts, and then to go step-by-step through that process. That is how the system works. And brother Assad did a very good job of articulating how you get a meeting with a, you member and your staff. And that’s just it. The sister did not come in and demand a meeting with a congressman. As a matter of fact, her congressman, Jim Davis, a Democrat from Florida, refused to meet with her, his staff refused to meet with her. So she went to other members of congress. She started with her own member of congress first. That’s an example of how directly, a direct issue–I’m coming on the two minutes. And we definitely want to talk about the executive branch. There’s so many other examples like that where doctors will come into our office and talk about issues and introduce legislation and one of them we passed on the house floor. He had just, the one person came in and educated the member of congress, educated their staff, and if you’re talking to staff you’re talking to a member of congress. Believe me. In many cases, brother Assad said, it’s better to talk to staff and ask more [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] questions, do the work, they write the memo, they educate their people, but don’t in any way feel like you’re insulted because you’re meeting with staff. [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] if I’d be able to run one meeting to the other. It’s the time that matters. It’s not the picture. It’s not, you know, sitting down and having coffee. We can talk about the executive branch, perhaps in the Q and A. But basically the executive branch is much bigger, I would argue they’re less responsive because they don’t have that constituent concern. They’re not concerned about the next election. But there are ways to navigate the executive branch. I was with the executive branch as sister Rheema said, for eight years, in various capacities. And again, it’s knowing who to talk to. It’s doing your homework about the issues. It’s doing your homework about who to talk to, what’s relevant with that committee. It may be an issue, for example, or you might have an issue, for example, of Homeland Security, they’re profiling. So you need to know that you need to talk to civil rights at justice. You need to talk to civil rights at Homeland Security. And within Homeland Security, there’s customs and border patrol, there’s INS. So you need to do your homework. And know who to talk to and have a paper to give them. I’m a big believer in what they call leave-behinds. And then leaving a card that says, hey, once you’ve done some homework, just as I did in that story, follow up with me, I’m happy to [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] you want to develop that relationship and that’s how you can make the policy change. That’s how you can make your voices heard. I’m really looking forward to the question and answers. I know there will be some good, thoughtful questions. But thank you very much for coming and I look forward to that. [APPLAUSE]
RHEEMA DODIN:
[RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] so last but not least is Corey Saylor, who’s director of government affairs for the Council on American/Islamic Relations. He’s also a very patient man. He’s had more than a decade of nonprofit political communication legislative advocacy and media relations experience. He played a role in advocacy [UNCLEAR] drawing concessions from corporate giants such as Burger King and [UNCLEAR] His media relations efforts have placed stories in most major national and international media. Including London’s Financial Times and the [UNCLEAR] The Philadelphia Inquirer named Saylor [UNCLEAR] focused on a 2005/2006 reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act. Prime candidate for the type of advocacy we’re talking about here today. A web winner. And his criticism of bigoted remarks by Virgil Goode against congressman Keith Ellison helped draw national media focus to the issue. He has conducted dozens of leadership in advocacy and media trainings across the United States. [APPLAUSE]
COREY SAYLOR:
Rheema says I’m [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] [LAUGHTER] Inalienable rights. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That’s what we’re here to talk about this weekend, right? I think there’s one key thing that everybody has to understand about inalienable rights. They’re not so inalienable. Take a helicopter ride out to the middle of the ocean and have somebody drop you there and then argue with the ocean about my right to [UNCLEAR] it’s going to last about five minutes. Any child in this country who has parents can tell you about how much pursuit of happiness they’re allowed when they’re around their parents. Right? These things are inalienable only when we stand up and agitate for them. So think about it. The Constitution, as written, made African-Americans three-fifths of a human being. The African-Americans didn’t accept that and needed to get supporters and ultimately that was changed. Our country evolved for the better. Women were not given the vote till the early 1900s. The original Constitution as written didn’t’t give it to them. They had to agitate. They had to stand up and fight for it. It wasn’t because they stayed home that they got that right to vote. So we, as Muslims, it is now our turn. You like the right to free speech? Free assembly? It is our community’s denial of those rights is currently focused on. We have to stand up. We have to agitate. And I hope that’s why you are here today. I believe that very strongly. So we know we have to do it. Where are we? There was a couple of lessons in the last election cycle that I thought were very interesting. Have no doubt we were treated as a pariah. Nobody really wanted–they wanted our votes, but not so publicly. Right? No real meetings with the major organized American-Muslim community. But there was a very interesting thing that happened. Both campaigns, both major campaigns, McCain and Obama, felt the need to have a Muslim outreach person. I’ve never seen that on both sides before. So it’s the beginnings of something. But let’s keep in mind that on the Obama side, the first Muslim outreach person lasted for about thirty seconds before somebody started agitating against him because he might once have been in the room with somebody who might once have agreed with [UNCLEAR] of somebody who thought something was questionable. [LAUGHTER] So we know that we’re at the beginnings. They’re beginning to feel like they need to reach out to us. What we lack at this point in time is the political muscle to make them feel like, you know what, if I don’t treat this community well, there’s a consequence at the ballot box. And that is what these kind of sessions are about. And I want to talk about very quick points and I’ll stop. Because I’m used to being on Fox News where they cut me off after about a three second speech. [LAUGHTER] [UNCLEAR] before my time. But I’m going to make three quick points. And forgive me for looking at my notes, but after four days of ISNA, I haven’t slept a whole lot. [LAUGHTER] I’m not going to blame it on any [UNCLEAR] a couple of weeks, [UNCLEAR] But I’ve been talking to elected officials. I know you’re very passionate about what you believe in. You have your issue. But they have, I think one office I talked to recently, they had seventy people through their office in one day, thought they were very passionate about their issues. So what you have to think about is what do they care about? All right? This is political work. It’s a two-way street. What do they care about? Well, we all know the first thing, money. And let’s face it, we’re the American-Muslim community. How many premed doctors are in the room? No, you can’t blame me for [UNCLEAR] [LAUGHTER] Engineers? All right, that’s what [UNCLEAR] we have a lot of them. No problems. All right? They want votes. There are areas where we can deliver a lot of votes. They need volunteers. When they’re running on these campaigns, most of it is done by free labor. And they want connections. And when I say connections, if you’re affiliated with a mosque, you can go into a congressional office and go, yeah, I’m so-and-so from Indiana, every week in our prayers, we have about three thousand people. A little light goes off in their head. [LAUGHTER] That says I better pay attention to what this guy is saying. [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] Three thousand people. This guy can influence votes. So you think about that when you’re talking to, how can you point out to them without being blunt about it, I mean, never walk into an office and be like, well, I have a hundred million dollars I’d like to give to your campaign. I usually just tell people, look, this is doctor so-and-so, this guy’s an engineer, this is doctor so-and-so. I don’t need to say anything. I just communicated my message. All right? And that’s the next point. How you communicate your message is incredibly important. You’re not always going to be talking to friends or people who care particularly about your issue. So how can you say things so that what you have to say, what you care about, is more acceptable to them? Now I work for CAIR. And part of our job as a civil liberties group is to take up cases to people who are not particularly liked by the community. And it’s like, I don’t like these guys. But what I care about is this is the United States of America, my Constitution says they have a right to an objective, fair trial. Right? So i walk into an office and I start talking about a case and they’re like, you know, I don’t even know how you would [UNCLEAR] this person, because Attorney General Ashcroft got a big press conference, it was first page news. And this got [UNCLEAR] Well, you know what, sir? John Adams, second president of our country, defended some of the British soldiers who were accused in the Boston Massacre. So if you have a problem with me defending people, you should probably take it up with one of the Founding Fathers and argue it with him. Now how many people on Capitol Hill are going to go, the Founding Fathers were wrong? Got it? Anybody? Now that’s a sacred cow, we don’t touch it. All right? So this is how you reframe an argument so that your point gets through their natural resistance to I don’t want to do anything to [UNCLEAR] You’re not. You’re upholding a condition of liberty in this country. Right? So that’s the key thing. Think about that. It’s done all the time. If you just sit around and think about it for a little while, it works. I learned it from the Republicans. We don’t drill for oil. War for energy. Right? Are you opposed to warring for energy? [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] very passionate, think about passionate [UNCLEAR] if you are making it easier for that person to accept what you’re saying. I’m not asking you to lie to them. I never [UNCLEAR] I am asking you to think about how are you going to deliver that message. The last thing I’m going to say–do I got like two minutes left yet? No? All right. The last thing that I’m going to say, Assad stole one of my normal lines for me. It is very normal in our community that some people will go to these functions with elected officials, pay a lot of money, and they get their picture taken. Politicians love that. They just got your money and all they had to do was give a picture. All right? That’s easy. I don’t have a problem if that’s what you want to do. If you don’t, you know, if you’re not really passionate about any issues, you can just lightly go and be able to interact with people like that, that’s great. Take my business card with you. Get your picture taken and then hand my business card over and say this is an organization that I like. I want to see you working with them. So next time we see each other at one of these lunches, I want to know that you’ve worked with them. And I say that not just as CAIR. I say that as any Muslim group. You find a group that you like, you want to empower our community, find a group that you like and stick with them. Promote them in the ways that you can and act against the government. Cause you as individuals, like I said, you can magnify your power, I represent a certain community, I’m a doctor, those kind of things. But it’s the institutions that are there consistently that’ll help organize to the point where next time there’s a Muslim outreach person and that Muslim outreach person is getting into trouble [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] work with, I don’t care if it’s MPAC, ISNA, MAS, CAIR, pick somebody you like and work with them. Last point–I just realized I have one more point–no permanent alliances, no permanent enemies. This is a crucial thing in our community, the presidential election, when you look at the exit polls for the Muslim community, somewhere in the high eighties, voted for Obama. That’s fine. I know there was a lot of liking for him and there was a lot of things to dislike from the past administration. But frankly, if I’m a Democratic strategist, I look at that and I go, hmm, we got the Muslims, we don’t have to give them anything. Cause we know they’re going to vote for us. And I learned that from an African-American member of congress who told me the Kerry campaign was giving them nothing cause they knew they got the African-Americans back in the sixties. So we have to keep that in mind. We have to look at which party is going to give to us the things that we want. And then deliver our votes that way. All right? Let’s keep in mind, towards the end of the election, it was not a Democrat that stood up and said, hey, being a Muslim in this country is okay. It was a former member of the Bush Administration who told the crowd. That was the man who finally said enough is enough. Let’s also remember that it was Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, who freed the slaves. So I hear a lot of Republican members of our community getting abused. How many here are Republican? There’s a very lot of you–there’s a lot of things in that party that are aligned with our faith. Social issues. There are things we disagree with. But the key here is that we should have Muslims working with the Democrats and have Muslims working with the Republicans [APPLAUSE] [UNCLEAR] everyone’s going to be mad at the Democrats [UNCLEAR] So you keep that in mind, work with people in your communities, and that is how we will ultimately empower ourselves. I look forward to our discussion. Thanks. [APPLAUSE]
RHEEMA DODIN:
One more round of applause for our whole panel. [APPLAUSE] [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] 9/11, remind everyone that [UNCLEAR] we’re here. So as soon as you’re home and, you know, you have sort of a circular citizen responsibility and in return, you have access to the resources. And you shouldn’t be shy. Your point of view matters and your story is very, very important and you should be proud to tell it to those who represent you. Regardless of party affiliation. Either way. I just also want to put out a little reminder that your letters and your phone calls do matter to the congressional offices. Everything is tallied, typically all letters are read and all phone calls and letters are tallied. [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] people really do [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] about two thousand letters on a particular issue. So even if you’re not super–[RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] enough time to [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] when something happens in the news or in the community that you care about, definitely get time to communicate your opinion. It definitely matters. And now with computers, everything’s on record. [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] especially the districts to change, which they’re going to in the next few years. I guess, finally, geography matters almost more than anything else. [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] they do and it’s amazing the strange bedfellows that geography will make over party. And I think the greatest example of this is Russ Feingold who’s amazing on civil rights issues. He’s from Wisconsin, though. So because he’s from Wisconsin, regardless of what he feels about civil rights, he is very pro-gun and that’s just something that as, you know, sort of a Democrat, kind of we’ve had to accept. And that’s just, that’s geography. It’s a [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] all politics are local. That’s the bottom line. And it works very much to the advantage of constituents. And so, finally, for those, the young have a lot of time and for the less young, may have more treasure than time, and both are absolutely essential to this process. So I won’t go too much into the fundraising aspect things, but you know, every two years, there’s sort of, a war is raged and money’s required for political war. And people that have been on that side of it and volunteers who have helped sort of the, you know, the troops on the front lines of it, can help benefit from the spoils of entry, I guess I’ll put it that way. It’s very like [UNCLEAR] to put it in like war terms but, you know, well, there you go. So with that and the final [UNCLEAR] is have patience. Sometimes it takes years to develop a relationship with staffers and with members. It will always pay off in the end. Always, always, always. So without further ado, I’m going to, I think we’re going to open it up to Q and A. And we’ll start with, yes sir, can you stand up and say you’re name and where you’re from, so you can i.d. your district?
REGGIE STONE:
My name’s Reggie Stone. I’m a student at [UNCLEAR] University and I was born and raised in New Jersey, so [UNCLEAR] So I have a question, I know it’s not necessarily the main topic of discussion, but it’s somewhat related. So how do you go about mobilizing, you know, members of your community so that when you do finally schedule a meeting with a staffer that you have, you know, some political clout and, you know, you’re not just one person who can say, you know, I have one thousand, five thousand people that can sort of, you know, vote for you or against you?
RHEEMA DODIN:
Okay, Corey, do you want to [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR]
ASSAD AKHTER:
The question was how do you build the advocacy, how do you build groups so that you have some push behind what you’re trying to say and do that and brother Corey and CAIR has built a tremendous organization needed that at one point, I heard mentioned, we did mention this, you know, they have an e-mail list. You should all have an e-mail list to keep contact with. Because e-mails are power nowadays. And CAIR, how big is the list now, Corey? That you–[UNCLEAR]
COREY SAYLOR:
Hundreds of thousands.
ASSAD AKHTER:
Hundreds of thousands. So they’re getting up there with McDonald’s. So the e-mail list works that, you know, all of a sudden somebody has a problem, somebody, some work, so oftentimes it’s a workplace issue. You know, sister is wearing hijab. They told her she has to take off the hijab for her work. And all of a sudden they say they’re going to fire her. Or they’re going to fire a bunch of Muslims. Just discriminatory issues. Well, they send out an e-mail saying, this is wrong. This is the company you call or this is congressman or whatever the issue is–this is who you call, this is the message you give. And boom, just like that, call, call, call, call, call, to the point where these private companies, it’s not worth it. It’s not worth it. They just say just fix this. Fix this. You know, give the Muslims what they need, what they want. Fix this. And then what CAIR comes in and does is says, oh, yeah, well, you fixed that, but now you need training. Now you need to fix this so you guys never do this again. You need to be, you know, sanitized, so that you don’t do this again, unless–
MAN:
Sanitized. [LAUGHTER]
ASSAD AKHTER:
But they need their–sensitized–either way, they need to be cleaned up. [LAUGHTER] So, but anyway [LAUGHTER] [UNCLEAR] So the point was, is that having that kind of mobilization is very important, it’s very key. But when it comes to the meetings, when it comes to members of congress meetings, you don’t need a hundred people. What you want is like, you know, a few people. Like, you know, less than five. You don’t want like twenty people, you know, you just need a good core group. Again, any organization needs to identify that these people are all members of the organization, that these are the few people who are really dedicated to it. So if you’re really dedicated to it, get a few other people who are really dedicated to it, and then, you know, you have other people who are ready to support when necessary. So again, great example that Corey brought up [UNCLEAR] felt very strongly about. Cause Friday prayer is the perfect political moment for us, because for a politician, you come in, you know, member of congress, or your mayor, or your local representative, you come in, hundreds of people, maybe thousands of people, in one place, sitting down, they are forced to listen. you know, afternoon prayer. They can’t believe that, but forced to listen, you make a complimentary speech and you get out. It’s a good hit for them and it’s great of you and when they see, you say, oh, well, we have this cause where there’s only five of you in there. Come to Friday prayer, they see hundreds, thousands, you know, whoever, they see people, well, they think they’re with you. They think even if they’re not, even if not all of them are willing to go take that meeting, none of them will be–the perception thing, perception strength there. And so I’ll just give you a quick story. I went down, I got invited to go down to Birmingham, Alabama. Which I never, to speak to a Muslim community down there. And I never suspected that, I didn’t realize there was a community down there. And they had this, they had a real nice community. And I was real proud about what they were doing. And they’re growing. They were so small, but they were real, you know, they said–how do you build a relationship with our congressman? And they were talking about donations, this, we need to put money in, we want a relationship with this and all that and I said, well, have you ever invited the mayor down to your mosque? No. Ever invited, you know, anybody on the, you know, the Birmingham City Council? No. [UNCLEAR] No. Have you ever spoken with the district office? No. So again, you know, it’s, the politics are local. Talk to your neighbors. Talk to the people who work, you know, in your community. Talk to these people just a little bit like that. There’s no excuse for any muzhdid [PH] in America not to be visited by local [UNCLEAR] at least make that attempt to do so, because they need to see that we’re there. You know, a lot of people in our communities [UNCLEAR] nothing at all. Well, they should at least be counted then for that moment for somebody to see that these people do exist in our community. They live here. They care and they should be accounted for and it would be similar. So that’s how I would say that this is the way to build that up.
COREY SAYLOR:
The first thing you need to do is [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] so what you’re going to have to do is a simple point that you want to make. In a way that you can articulate it quickly to people and convincingly to people. I always suggest that you need to follow two different principles. One, if you’re going to write it in an e-mail, be able to write it out in a hundred and fifty words or less. Research shows that people will generally read that much of an e-mail. You send it somebody, some [UNCLEAR] you know, wait, everybody will read those [UNCLEAR] Right? And then also we formulate what are called talking points. Three of them are usually good. Make sure you can say each one in nine seconds or less. So I want to be able to present my case very quickly. Cause you’re not going to have much [UNCLEAR] Then what I would do is go around mosques in the district or wherever it is that I was targeting, [UNCLEAR] you know, you’re looking at, anywhere [UNCLEAR] Paterson, New Jersey. You’re going to want to go to the community up there. Don’t just stick to the Muslim community. Reach out to other groups. And just find yourself [UNCLEAR] Once you have that core group of, you know, five or six people that are very energetic about your issue, have them go out, get people to sign petitions, actually, when you walk into your meeting, you’re not just five guys who are very energetic. You are a whole list of names. But here’s the key. This is where the community organizing and mobilizing comes. What I got is I got those petitions, I got e-mail addresses and phone numbers. So that after I have my meeting, I can then go back to my people that I’m trying to mobilize and say, we had the meeting, now we need you to call. And for you guys who work in congressional offices, how many phone calls or e-mails [UNCLEAR] your office [UNCLEAR]
SUHAIL KHAN:
On one issue, just a dozen–
ASSAD AKHTER:
A couple, yeah.
COREY SAYLOR:
Hear that? A dozen can get their attention. So you don’t need to generate thousands. If you can get on one issue, fifty, sixty phone calls, you have their attention. They key, however, is to be able to do that repeatedly. If there’s one thing that you will find about congressional offices, yeah, I’ll talk about [UNCLEAR] that issue. I have my notes. I’m going to go back to my boss. Tell me what you guys know [UNCLEAR] All right? And I’m going to go back to my boss–follow up is key. And the ability to have groups of your community follow up, they can’t forget it. You know, and hitting it again and again and again. And that is what will get you a basic power and that is what will get you attention.
RHEEMA DODIN:
Thank you for your question. Yes, sir?
MAN:
Salaam alekum.
RHEEMA DODIN:
[OVERLAP] Name, district?
AZIZ ANSEN:
Oh, salaam alekum. My name is Aziz Ansen [PH]. I’m an attorney from upstate New York. And I think you talked about all politics is local. But i don’t think we are really spending enough time on it. I’m going to give you a couple of examples. In our area, I’m from the [UNCLEAR] New York. And during Eid prayers, we invited our local politicians to–there’s an issue that we can’t have non-Muslims in our prayer area [UNCLEAR] but what I have done is I’ve gotten local officials to stand outside, just shake hands. And basically, just salaam alekum [ARABIC] that’s all is needed, that was wanted. I had the local sheriffs and police officers come and do photo I.D. for the kids. Because they have this program where they take photographs of the kids and then they have this whole I.D. and the kids get it. And I’ve been doing it during Eid prayer, during Eid celebration. What it did was, when 9-11 happened, I was able to pick up the phone and talk to the sheriff and I said, you know what, 9-11 has happened, they’re getting threats, etceteras. And the sheriff said, we have a zero tolerance policy in our county. There are two police officers stationed at both entrances to the mosque and they increased the patrol of the whole area. And mashallah, our people, when they went for the [UNCLEAR] prayers, on the Friday after 9-11, they felt so secure and comfortable because we had built up the relationship. So we talked about all politics is local, it’s very important to understand that it is local. Your school boards and, again, your local mayor, your councilman, [UNCLEAR] so small, you know, I mean there are very small what you call, you know, elected representatives. But you just shake their hands and bring them, and even if you can bring ten votes or twenty votes or a hundred votes, those votes do matter in local council races. And I’ll tell you, all politics is definitely, definitely local. Thank you.
RHEEMA DODIN:
Thank you. [APPLAUSE]
ASSAD AKHTER:
This brother just recently was elected to office in his local area, so if we can give a round of applause for — [APPLAUSE]
RHEEMA DODIN:
Those are great examples. Thank you so much. [UNCLEAR]
MAN:
[VERY FAINT] Hi, my name is [UNCLEAR] I came from a [UNCLEAR] [OVERLAPPING VOICES] [LAUGHTER] they have decided to get involved in politics and [UNCLEAR] is six hundred and fifty thousand registered Democratic votes and by working in the community, [UNCLEAR] we were able to get elected by the [UNCLEAR] chairperson [UNCLEAR] and the co-chair [CELL PHONE RING] [UNCLEAR] the language, the process that we need to have in order [UNCLEAR] but this is my first time here [UNCLEAR] what we have to do also, we have to have a connection between the people that are involved in the [UNCLEAR] involved in the local, so we can have a database that we can go and [UNCLEAR] so I really appreciate this presentation. Thank you very much [APPLAUSE]
SUHAIL KHAN:
One other, and the brother from New York brought this up, I think sometimes when it comes to our–we have an infrastructure of our mosques, our Islamic centers and I think there sometimes is a concern about bringing elected officials in from two sides. Usually, first of all, get into a prayer, they don’t want to, you know, corrupt the prayer with politics. And that’s unfortunate, because it is a great opportunity as brother Assad pointed out, to show our power in numbers. It’s also a good way, because quite frankly, to show our numbers because we have good numbers. We don’t necessarily have good registration. So we can just kind of overwhelm them with numbers while we get our community registered. But then another way, another venue to approach is what we’ve done in my hometown, in Santa Clara, California, is what we have is community forums. Community forums where every election, we invite both the incumbents and the candidates to come in and to talk about why they’re running and their issues. So that way, we’re staying, we’re staying away from any type of endorsements or any type of, you know, running afoul of, losing our nonprofit status. We’re just saying, hey, whatever party you are, if you’re running for office, we want to hear from you. The community shows up and, usually on a Friday night or Saturday, so the community shows up in numbers. And I can say those have been very successful. And more than anything else, it’s been very effective with our local elected officials, with mayors, city councilmen, county supervisor. It also worked for the congressional delegation of the San Francisco/San Jose/Bay Area. They show up for those things, because we have so many people that show up just to listen on the issues. And that’s a way that won’t be, you know, again, just like the brother said, you can have people greeting people outside the mosque. But if you have it on the community center portion of the mosque or community center–that portion–so it is not, there’s no issues. But that’s a good way demonstrating first to the elected officials that you care about issues, that you’re a community, that you’re organized and then, secondly, it gives access to the Muslim community, perhaps for the first time, to their elected officials and they can see and meet them for the first time so they can learn about how, what matters to them. And then from that, going back to the brother in the front, his first question, in that from that you can develop a core group that can then say, you know, elected official so-and-so, or candidate so-and-so, we’d like to come in to–to come in and meet with you to talk about health care reform. Or we’d like to come in and talk to you about what’s happening in Gaza. And there it is as brother Assad and Corey have described, you take a smaller group that’s well-prepared that, you know, I’ve been in so many meetings where they’ll bring in fifteen, twenty people and just the logistics of greeting them in and sitting them down takes up half the time of the meeting. Then half of them don’t speak English or not very well. And you’re like, well, why is this person here? And, you know, the introductions take a long time. No. Bring in a core group. Have your issue just as Assad said and the ask. We call it the ask. What’s your ask? What are you, you know, you can talk to members of congress about a hundred issues that are important, but what do you want them to do about it? That’s so critical. And just as was said before, what is your ask? Your ask? You want me to cosponsor a bill? Is your ask, for example, when I got my secret evidence example, once we introduced a bill and we had a bill number, then i could go back to Muslims, no matter where they were from and say, can you talk to your congressman to cosponsor HR, you know, five two seven. That’s your ask. You know, then you have to take action on it. Or your ask could be, for example, my mother and another brother in our area were very upset, like all of us were, about the latest incursion into Gaza. And so one of the brothers got a meeting with our local congresswoman and he was ready to go in there guns a’blazing, saying you voted for the pro-Israel resolution. Do you know what’s happening and just go through the parade of horribles. I said you can do that. And it’ll be very therapeutic for you. [LAUGHTER] But it’ll be your first and last meeting. Because the moment that meeting is over, a member of congress is going to turn to the staffer and say, I don’t want that person to come near me. Nobody wants to be berated and yelled at. So I said, look, you need to think about building a relationship with this person. The person voted for that resolution for a reason. They didn’t vote for it because they hate Palestinians or because they’re stupid or anything like that. They voted for a reason. Whether they were ill-informed, whether they were misinformed, whether they, you know, thought that these were the facts [UNCLEAR] out of fear, whatever they might be, they voted for it, you want to develop a relationship. Take–get some facts and figures, boil them down to one page, go in there and say, look, we’re concerned about this issue. We want to work with you. We want to be a resource for you on this issue. One issue. Not Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir and Palestine all in one meeting. One issue, Palestine. And then you develop that relationship. And go in there, not fifteen people, two or three people that know something about the issue. That can actually contribute on the issue. Make it brief. And be a resource, that they say, after you leave that room, that they turn to their staffer and say, you know what, I really learned something in that meeting or I’m curious about this issue. Can we call the State Department to verify, is it true that so many children were killed in the invasion? Or is it true–let’s find out about that and look into it. And they asked to sign a letter–you have a question, go ahead.
WOMAN:
Yeah, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to–
SUHAIL KHAN:
No, that’s okay. I’m just free-forming [LAUGHTER]
NORA:
So my name is Nora [UNCLEAR] from Columbus, Ohio. I’m a student at Ohio State [UNCLEAR] for the summer.
SUHAIL KHAN:
Whose office?
NORA:
[UNCLEAR]
SUHAIL KHAN:
Uh-huh.
NORA:
So my question to you is what is the greatest challenge to Muslim political advocacy? [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] lack of knowledge of how we should advocate? Or is it fear? And I have a [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] and the second is, I don’t know if there’s been any polling done or a general consensus, what are the issues that concern Muslim-Americans outside of, you know, security checks or like problems at the airport or even civil rights? Like are there certain economic or social issues that concern Muslim-Americans?
SUHAIL KHAN:
I want to let the other brothers answer the question, too. But we’ve changed dramatically. When I first got involved, the question was is politics [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] people would talk about the subject. How do you access your elected officials? And secondly, the biggest challenge we’re having today is organized as far as votes. We don’t know how many Muslims are registered. We need to get them registered, first of all. We don’t know how many are registered, because were are in swing states. We can make differences in key swing states. Ohio, Virginia, New Jersey, and California. Pennsylvania, Michigan, these are swing states. There’s not a national campaign, they’re state by state. So that’s, that’s what we need to get organized in getting people registered and then how people can effectuate policy and can actually talk to legislators, talk to elected officials, that’s the challenge. But we’re getting there. We’re getting there. We’re slow, but we’re getting there.
ASSAD AKHTER:
And brother Suhail knows, for a long time, how to build that kind of ask and have that network, cause you can do it for a long time, quite to the chagrin of us Democrats [LAUGHTER] but, he’s been doing it for a long time. Your question about, first of all, the issues, and probably Corey can talk more about that, from that perspective, but it has shifted. It’s changed. It used to be all about foreign policy or what [UNCLEAR] foreign policy. And that’s kind of also, again, its own Muslim community as a second generation, you know, comes into it, and the first generation born here, and it’s shifted. It’s changing. And even ISNA has done a great job of watching all of this. You’ll see Dr. Sayed [PH] [UNCLEAR] on issues like [UNCLEAR] on issues like [UNCLEAR] and he says, yeah, these kind of things. These domestic issues where we’re taking parternships with others about that we care as Muslim-Americans. But let me just say that the point I really wanted to make about what you were saying is what do we lack? Where are we lacking? If you’ve seen me at ISNA when I, again, feel really strong and people say I’m optimistic, but I really feel this way, We lack nothing. Okay? We lack nothing except, and I’ll tell you what, except–but we don’t lack money. We have money. Okay, walk into the parking lot of any muzhdid [PH] probably here or wherever, you’ll see we have money, okay. [LAUGHTER] We have, we have education. [UNCLEAR] Our community is over–is not overeducated, but educated more, my parents would say I’m overeducated, but they–[LAUGHTER] –but, the, we are educated more than the average, than the average. We have more money and more education than the average and we have population. Our size is growing. And population growth has never really been a problem for Muslims worldwide. [LAUGHTER] because I only see that, I think our numbers will continue to grow, continue to flourish. It’s not a problem. So we lack nothing except patience and coordination. Patience and coordination. Patience because we are young as a community and we look at other communities and we know the communities–we look at other communities and we say, how come we’re not there? How come we can’t do this? How come they get this and we don’t get that? Well, they have more numbers, they’ve been here longer, they’ve been doing this longer, and so we have to have the patience to understand it’s going to take us longer. But we’re getting there fast. We’re getting there faster. But we have to have the patience to understand that. But finally, how do we get there faster? How do we get there? Coordination. And I just want to show you something that just happened that was very curious that just nobody noticed and I noticed. Brother Anas Malik [PH] is here from [UNCLEAR] Ishura [PH] [UNCLEAR] But he is, yeah, there he is. [UNCLEAR] He’s here from the [UNCLEAR] Ishura. ISNA is responsible for putting together many of these programs and we thank them for all the commitment they make to political [UNCLEAR] please [APPLAUSE] We need more such programs from ISNA and all the conventions. But the brother here from Florida, from Palm Beach, said, oh, you know, we are, we have a co-chair, we’ve done this politically in Palm Beach, my brother [UNCLEAR] is from Florida. And he hears about this and he doesn’t know this brother [UNCLEAR] he walks over to him and he gives him a card. And says let’s get in touch. Let’s talk about this cause we’re both from Florida, we’re both building up networks, now they’re coordinated. See? Whereas he was doing his thing here, he was doing his thing there, they were effective in their areas, but now they’re coordinated. Now they have a bigger Florida network. That’s how you feel now when they–Florida talks to Michigan, now you have a national network. This is how it works. This is coordinate–that’s why I say e-mails powered Barack Obama to win that presidency. He didn’t win–Hillary Clinton came in, quite honestly, with a bigger political network, big guns, with the big donors and the big thing. But why did Barack Obama win? I believe, not just the message, it wasn’t just hope, it wasn’t just hope that won. [LAUGHTER] It was e-mails and phone numbers, okay? They not only told you, we have an event, you know, we’re having a rally over here or whatever, they told you, you got a text message, it said, hey, we’re having a rally, you know, half an hour from now. And that was free and you showed up. Because you got it right then, right then, and this–and then after the rally, they sent you another text that said, hey can you send us twenty dollars? You send them twenty dollars. Some someone else sent him two thousand dollars. Well, you sent him twenty dollars and so did a hundred of your friends. Same difference. And so did more people. So that’s coordination. It’s the only thing we lack. Just, last example. You know, on Capitol Hill, one of the most, one of the most effective communities, people talk about all the big [UNCLEAR] but the most effective community on Capitol Hill is one of the smallest. It’s the Armenian community. The Armenian-American community. They have a small little group. And, honestly, there’s a number of hill staffers who’ll be like, God, we really don’t like meeting with the Armenians. [LAUGHTER] We really don’t like, you know what I mean? Because they are persistent. And they’re a small little group. They probably, they seem to have more people in Washington than they do nationally, but [LAUGHTER] they have, they have, they have, they’ll have the people there and they will meet with you and they will follow up and they’ll do it and they make their numbers, it doesn’t matter how [UNCLEAR] and they built up this huge network of capitol connections just based on this, just based on the fact that they’re persistent, they’re organized, they’re committed to it and they’ll just–they make their point clearly and politely, but they’re annoying as heck. Cause they just keep coming back and they just, they know and they have the long view, that if we just keep building these relationships, we’ll just keep getting stronger. So just look at it that way. We don’t have to have, I mean, we don’t lack anything. They can’t stop us unless we stop ourselves. And that’s the only–I hope you can take that away from this committee. [APPLAUSE]
COREY SAYLOR:
[UNCLEAR] that the number one thing is we lack the organization at this point in time. If you think about it, most Muslim organizations when we’re dealing with public policy type work, we’re formed in the 1990s. So at this point in time, as a community, we’re teenagers politically. So we’re still not [UNCLEAR] we’re in that kind of gawky, awkward stage. [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] So we’re there and then we get September 11th. Which, have no doubt, kicked us back twenty years. Though we’ve made incredible recovery, and I’ll share, I remember coming to ISNA in the late 1990s, and there would be a line from about as many people in this room to [UNCLEAR] [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] right? So I’d be like registering to vote, they’d be like [UNCLEAR] they finished up the side [UNCLEAR] [LAUGHTER] Right? Now we have [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] That’s amazing to me. So have no doubt, the organization is coming quickly. But it’s not there yet. What are the issues that we poll about? Other than civil rights and civil liberties? Health care and education consistently are the top two. Last time CAIR did a poll, it was right in the middle of the Lebanon invasion in ‘06. I think it was. ‘07? And even with that being a key sort of in the news, in your face, everybody’s emotional about it right now, that was only the third issue. Health care and education always beat it out. So [UNCLEAR] if you look forward to hearing about these issues, you got to do it cause it’s in the news right now. But those two, outside of civil liberties, are always key.
RHEEMA DODIN:
[UNCLEAR] Can you raise your hand if you have a question or are formulating a question just so I can see sort of the lay of the land? Brother, is it okay if we come back to you just because there’s a few, so we can give everyone a chance? Okay. [OVERLAPPING VOICES] Yeah.
WOMAN:
Hey Corey.
RHEEMA DODIN:
Yes, ma’am. [OVERLAPPING VOICES] [LAUGHTER]
WOMAN:
[UNCLEAR] Corey a lot. I’m from Oklahoma, so I kind of struggle politically, luckily, we do have a lot of connections, and Corey touched on it a little bit about, you know, we’ll support them, they’ll come to our little meetings in our houses with [UNCLEAR] and stuff like that, but publicly it’s hard for them to say, oh, we support Muslims. And we have had some politicians who, they’re like, you know, we don’t care if people hate us for supporting Muslims, we’re going to support you publicly. And we can see this last campaign and this last election has really hurt their campaign a lot. The ones that were openly most like supporting of Muslims. Blogs went up, signs went up, people called their office, saying, we heard you support CAIR, we’ll never be your friends. You know, we’re taking our money and so we’ve told politicians, you know, it’s okay, don’t publicly say you’re with us. It’s okay. We want to help you, but I don’t really know how to say the question, but what do we do in that situation when they’re okay with publicly being, like, our friends, but it hurts their campaign in the end, but we really need these people, especially in Oklahoma, we need these people now more than ever? Does that make sense?
RHEEMA DODIN:
I’ll just make a quick comment cause you are from Oklahoma, and former senator Tom Coburn is from, was a very interesting political creature. But–
WOMAN:
[OVERLAP] We know. We know. [LAUGHTER]
RHEEMA DODIN:
You know, he was the ranking member on the subcommittee for human rights and the law in the judiciary. And through that he became very passionate about the material support bar issue. And he’s also well-acquainted with a number of doctors. Which I think is a really interesting sort of intersection between where there’s a large Muslim population and then individual [UNCLEAR] Tom Coburn. And it’s definitely an example where him becoming informed through evangelicals, you know, through medical sources, sort of these odd channels, on issues that are extremely important to the Muslim community, have enabled him to take up the mantle of those issues even though they don’t, they’re not necessarily popular within his own party. I guess he’s considered in many ways sort of a rogue.
WOMAN:
He swings both ways.
RHEEMA DODIN:
You know, he can be a little unpredictable. But it’s been very impressive to see his work on the human rights subcommittee and fascinating considering his work in so many other areas. And so I’ll just, you know, I’ll say, I think this sort of goes to how young our community is in that we have to be a little bit patient on some of those issues. Still absolutely have to push, but in terms of, I think the number one solution there is to then go into the issue of advocacy. And very much focus on the issues and where you can bring people in on the issues. And I think Suhail’s probably going to have some great–
ASSAD AKHTER:
Rheema, before Suhail actually addresses that, I’d like to make a quick point about that, too, based on something in the Obama campaign, namely Florida, because, everyone knows about the whole issue with Obama and the Muslim community and they didn’t want to be too close [UNCLEAR] public. I think that we as a community faced last year was that we wanted to reach out to the Obama community, they wanted to reach out to us, but in the end, [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] things like that. And it provided a bit of a conflict for us. But what we did is that, at least in our Florida organizations, that we started using back channels. [UNCLEAR] was the campaign manager–what was the other guy who was [OVERLAPPING VOICES] there was another very senior person who was with him. In the Chicago office and he had really good contacts with him [CELL PHONE RING] [UNCLEAR] [CELL PHONE RING] And so what we did is that we established this, these communications that we knew that the senior people in the campaign were engaging our community in the back channels. So that even if we weren’t getting any public attention, that we knew we had a– a line of communications that we could get our issues [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] and that way, we felt that we could go back to our [UNCLEAR] and say, look, [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] any kind of public support, but the [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] that way, he still [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] campaign or the candidate does necessarily with that view.
SUHAIL KHAN:
That, it’s a challenge. In fact, we’ve taken several steps forward and several steps back. Being, again, I’ll tell you, you know, several years ago, just when Muslims finally for the first time got organized, and went to then-candidate Michael Dukakis to organize and offer their support, he said, no. You know, he said if you want to help then stay away from me. And so you fast forward to 2000 where both candidates were pushing and trying to get Muslim support and money, and then, unfortunately, after 9-11, we’ve seen both parties shrink to a certain degree at l least to publicly be associated with us. I think the challenge is, specifically to Oklahoma, I’ll give you two quick insights. First, it’s a battle. It’s a fight. I mean, the Muslim staffers on the hill were facing that. As far as getting jobs or continuing to have jobs. After 9-11, there was a campaign to try and get me out of the White House when I got nominated for different positions [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] and I think what we do, you’re doing the exact right thing by [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] let the politicians [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] but make it easier for them by providing them with support and alliances. What I would suggest is the other member of congress, for example, who’s associated with the Muslim community now is losing financial support. He’s getting all the attack e-mails and the websites are popping up which I, trust me, I know how horrible they are. What you might do to help them, first of all, there are going to be some courageous people and you need to stand with them. So that’s great. What you might want to do is, number one, you need to financially support them. Make up for that loss of donations. Secondly, we need to work with outside folks that are other members of the community, editorial boards, etceteras, to educate them so they can write the editorials about the community said, hey, you know, Congressman Jones is getting criticism from some quarters for going to a mosque during Eid prayers, etceteras. This is wrong. Just a kind of Colin Powell statement. You know, just like that. And I’ll give you another thing, I was just in your neck of the woods over a week ago. Last Sunday. And believe it or not, I spoke at a mega church in Dallas, about eight thousand people, two services, and these were hardcore, you know, hardcore evangelicals and, again, it’s walking them through. You know, it’s going and making those contacts. And [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] speak to the church and it was, you know, just, it was an interesting experience. [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] after that, that time where I spent with the pastor [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] we were talking about the political, and he asked, he said to me, you know what, Suhail? I have to say, after talking to you as a Muslim, and me as a conservative Christian, I would support you politically more than I would many Christians. But it takes that, developing that relationship. So don’t give up. The communities that you think sometimes are the most close-minded oftentimes can be our friends. I’m not saying that the whole community will embrace you right away. But there will be those that will stand with you. And that’s the challenge. We are carving our way now to the political arena, we’re becoming, we’re a growing community and that, it’s open to a lot of elbows and a lot of sharp edges, but inshallah, we’ll make it. Who would have said after the tragedy of 9-11 that we would not have one, but two Muslim members of congress? We’re going to have more. I think one of them’s sitting right next to us now. [LAUGHTER] But no, inshallah, but we’re getting there. But keep to work–the last thing about Coburn, yeah, he’s been trouble. He’s been trouble about ISNA. He got a lot of bad information. I talked to him just three weeks ago in New York. I’m going to be going to talk to him about these issues. He went to Israel/Palestine recently. Was held up at the Al-Ameed [PH] bridge in Jordan for four hours, despite being a member of congress, by the IDF. Trust me. He’s open right now. He’s learning. He’s learning. [LAUGHTER] [OVERLAPPING VOICES] He’s gotten a lot of information from the other side, but he’s learning.
RHEEMA DODIN:
We’re going to–brother in the back with a question, and then we are over time. So I’m going to encourage, after this question, I just want to say thank you everyone so much for coming. But we are, we’re going to be up here, so feel free to come on up and talk to us. Please introduce yourself. And if you have specific questions, we would love to take them.
VARSA:
[UNCLEAR] My name’s Varsa [PH] I live in upper Michigan. My question is on strategy. Let’s say I have a civil rights, I’m interested in civil rights legislation I want to suggest. So there’s two points I have, two questions. Which congressman would I choose, you know, strategically, if I have a choice. I mean I actually have my own congressman. But if I know that I have connections to other people who have different congressmen, constituents there, which one would I choose to go with to be the main sponsor? And then secondly, how detailed, I know you said, you know, come in with a brief, you know, overview, but if I could actually, you know, outline the legislation, would I do that? You know, in fact, actually proposing the language and whatnot, knowing what you guys would create as a memo. What, should I do that?
RHEEMA DODIN:
Very good question. I think, Assad, will you. . .?
ASSAD AKHTER:
Rheema can actually address this very well, because she worked with the, before coming on the floor staff, she was on the judiciary committee staff for Senator Durbin and actually has council experience on these kind of issues. Yeah, going to your question, things in congress are generally done obviously regional, local comes first, regional comes third, but your second base of power is your committees. What committees you’re on. So, you know, something like a civil rights issue, I think civil rights was what you said? That would be the judiciary committee. The judiciary committee would handle civil rights almost exclusively to that. There may be a Homeland Security component as well, but generally the judiciary committee is the one that handles it and within that committee, they have subcommittees. So that actually is, that would be the civil rights subcommittee that specifically has civil rights in the title. But they break it down, again, by subcommittee. So those are your, that’s your number one target right there. Because that subcommittee is only composed of about, you know, less than ten Democrats and a few Republicans. But [LAUGHTER] there’s a few, there’s a few people on that subcommittee and they’re dedicated cause they know about that issue, they are staffed on this issue. As far as the language, I wouldn’t necessarily go in there with it first. What you do is you have the one-pager, like we were talking about, you have a one-pager, like here’s my issue, boom, boom, boom. This is why, this is the whole thing. This is why you should care, again, this is not just why I should care or why I care. Why it’s important to me. This is why you should care. This is why you–it’s important to you. And like the sister said, you know, about being from Oklahoma, you know, I’ve never been to Oklahoma, but I imagine like many parts, that they have a long history of independence. You know, a long history of civil independence and differences. Appeal to people’s sensibilities. You know, appeal to somebody like, like Bob Barr and, you know, being from the South, Georgia, you never suspect that this person is somebody who would align with Muslim values, but they believe in like libertarian type values. They don’t believe in like, you know, the, you know, stay out of my business. Stay out of my–so appeal to those, to those [UNCLEAR] So I would come in with a one-pager, the boom, boom, boom. And have in your back pocket, the language. If you have it. So if they say, oh, well, you know, do you have anything? Boom. But more likely, it is you give them the main information, they talk about it. You follow up. And then they say follow up, and then you have the language ready to give them in an e-mail. So that they never are wanting for information. Never leave them wanting for, you know, you always have it ready. Boom, you have the next step. The next step. You keep pushing them and that’s–it will progress that way through the selective process.
RHEEMA DODIN:
I’ll also say, it’s a very, very practical question. I think this also speaks to resources. I’d say if you have an amendment idea, check with CAIR and a lot of the sort of organizations that are, just to see if they also have a smaller idea floating around. Or ACLU or other civil rights-oriented groups to see if you can create a coalition. Aside from that, the idea, you remember, is that there is a member of the committee that is from your state. You know, you can go statewide as opposed to districtwide. You might as well start with them. But aside from that, look at who introduced the bill that you’re trying to amend. Who are the cosponsors? Who are considered strong cosponsors in the house really matters a lot. So you’re looking at chairmen, you’re looking at chairs of subcommittees. You want to approach those offices first and the most fundamental question you want to relay is why the amendment is needed, who it will impact, and what does the amendment do?: And if you can answer those three questions succinctly, I think you have a very good chance of getting a staffer’s attention. In terms of talking to staffers, think of them this way, they are very busy and they have many people coming at them. If you can package information so that they think it’s reliable, they think they can almost cut and paste it into a memo, then you are, your chances have gone up like by fifty percent of getting, making it happen.
VARSA:
Are you saying we don’t have to do all the work ourselves here? [OVERLAPPING VOICES]
ASSAD AKHTER:
That’s what I’m saying, all those cut and paste [OVERLAPPING VOICES]
RHEEMA DODIN:
This is what, you know, this behind the scenes on the hill. [OVERLAPPING VOICES] It’s, I’ll do it in a careful way. And this is where being reliable matters. If you , you know, if you provide any incorrect information, a staffer will probably never speak to you ever again. So, for a lot of these reasons. But the next thing you want to do is, in the life cycle of a bill, you want to try and get to the bill before the actual, like the chairman’s mark is even free to–that way you don’t even have to be an amendment [CELL PHONE RING] [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] committee staff. If you don’t get into the chairman’s mark, then what you want to do is watch for, everything is public, so you want to watch for when the markup’s going to be and at that point, you want any member of that committee to offer the amendment in committee. [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] so a bill is brought, it gets a number, and it’s assigned to a committee and then the house situation decides to settle for [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] what happens is, you’ve heard of [UNCLEAR] killing bills. The way they do that is that they never allow the bill to come up for a markup agenda. A markup is like a business meeting where all the members of the committee sit around and literally they go one by one through business. And the chairman, and on the senate side, a ranking member, because everything tends to have to be done at least somewhat by partisan basis, determines what’s going to be on that agenda. So the chairman, if you’ve angered the chairman, you won’t see your bills on the markup for like a year. So this is where seniority is huge. If you can, what happens is that in a, for the markup, the chairmen usually have created sort of an amended version of the originally dropped bill. And that’s where a lot of, the ability comes in for groups to come in and make changes. But the advantage of, sort of the committee markup is that it’s a smaller space, smaller venue. So if you can get to any of the members of that committee, get them the amendment text. They might be willing to offer the amendment in committee. And the more people you can get on the committee, cosponsoring your amendment, they’ll like highlight that you have it, it’ll actually be offered and accepted. The final and by far the last choice is to try and amend it on the floor. And in that case, you not only want to deal with your, with the committee leadership and whoever else you have on your side, whoever your allies are, you then also want to start to deal with pure leadership. So in the case of the house, you want to talk to Clyburn, Hoyers’ office, Pelosi’s office. People that are going to control what’s going to happen on the house floor and on the senate side you also want to deal with chairmen who are cutting the deals in terms of what amendments will be considered. And the ideal amendment will be, sadly, a compromise amendment. Well, there’s also a glory in that. I mean, this country’s sort of built on this idea of compromise. If you can figure out a way to create a bipartisan amendment, that still does what you want it to do, it has then, it has an even higher likelihood of being accepted. So I hope that [RUSTLING] [UNCLEAR] navigating through the system. And I would be happy to talk to you more about that in detail. So again, everyone, you know, a round of applause to you audience for keeping–[APPLAUSE] [UNCLEAR] And thank you so much for your interest. And again, we’re offering, we want to answer your questions. So thank you for [UNCLEAR] your own experience and please hand up your blue forms. So that all your great comments will go back in. Have a good day. Travel safely home. [OVERLAPPING VOICES] [SOUND OF CROWD DISPERSING] [MICROPHONE RUSTLING] [TOILET FLUSH]
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