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** Be Our Local Lobbyist Fighting Tax Money for Religious Schools
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The Senate is considering whether to add the Educational Choice for Children Act, a tax credit for school vouchers, to its giant tax-and-spending Reconciliation Bill this month. Including ECCA would reroute tax dollars to nonprofit groups that provide school vouchers to religious schools.

We need your help fighting this. ([link removed]) The best way would be for you to do a zoom or phone call with someone in your two Senators’ Washington offices, but the Senate staff is overwhelmed with meeting requests right now, including from people like me and the other lobbyists from the SCA member organizations.

Join us June 9th-13 to speak out against this bill. We’re encouraging you to meet with someone in your two Senators’ nearest district offices. Hearing directly from constituents is always the most effective form of lobbying. I’ll walk you through the steps here to set up a successful meeting.
What does ECCA do exactly? It creates a new $5 billion annual tax credit for people who donate to voucher-providing nonprofit organizations. If you donate $1,000 to one of these nonprofits, you get to deduct $1,000 from your bottom line tax bill next April.

There is no other dollar-for-dollar tax credit like this. Usually it’s something like donate $1,000, deduct $300 from your tax bill. Here the $1,000 school vouchers at private schools lets you deduct the full $1,000. Seventy-five percent of private schools are religious schools. So instead of $5 billion going to the treasury to pay for government services, that amount goes to school vouchers that mostly go to religious schools. We’re fighting that.

There is also a whole other tax argument against ECCA because it’s a tax shelter. You can donate stock as well as cash to the nonprofits and, summing up here, avoid your capital gains tax so ECCA would really cost the government more like $7 billion annually if smart tax accountants recommend that people donate stock to ECCA rather than sell it outright.

District Offices: Senators have several district offices around their states. The district staff focuses largely on local issues and helping constituents with problems like trouble with their Social Security but they should be willing to talk with you about an issue like ECCA.

If we get someone in the district office telling someone in the DC office “I’m hearing from a lot of people who don’t like this ECCA proposal, what’s our position on it?” that’s a good outcome. The massive trillion-dollar reconciliation bill facing the Senate contains hundreds of provisions. Getting attention on any of the smaller ones like ECCA isn’t easy.

It’s also useful to get to know someone in your district office because you can contact them about other issues, or your own problem with government programs like Social Security. Sometimes the local staff get promoted to the Washington office, or since they’re interested in government they run for local office. This is a good opportunity to build a relationship.

What’s the timeframe? The Senate is going to try to pass its version of the Reconciliation Bill this month. Try to get the meeting set up this week for some time next week, June 9th-13th. That would be ideal.

How do you find your nearest district office?
Every senator has an official senate website. You can look up your senators here ([link removed]) . On their website there’s a Contact link and that’s where you find the district offices. Or just Google your Senator's name and District Offices. That works too.
Step One: Do a little homework on the bill.
* These are our talking points on ECCA ([link removed]) .
* Here’sa two page explainer ([link removed]) from a public school advocacy group. Vouchers take students and money away from public schools.
* This explains how the tax shelter works ([link removed]) and what the effects are.
* You can find a few statistics on public, private, and religious schools in your stateon this site. ([link removed])
* Here’s one of many articles you can find summarizing the Reconciliation Bill ([link removed]) that the House sent to the Senate last month.
* Here is a three-minute NPR story on ECCA ([link removed]) and vouchers.

Step Two: Set up a district office meeting.

There's a few different options you can take. You can:
* Go to your district office in person for a meeting. We know not everyone can do this, or it could be 200 miles away.
* Have the meeting on Zoom or your favorite video platform.
* Have the meeting via a phone call.

Call your district office and say you’d like to talk to/meet with someone about an education bill, the Educational Choice for Children Act.

They might say that you need to talk to someone in the Washington office. If so, ask for the email for the education policy staffer and try to set up a zoom or phone call with them. Put “Meeting Request” in your subject line. Mention that you're a constituent referred by the district office.

(Calling the main office number in DC is usually pointless; it’s impossible to get through. You want that email address.) If you can’t get this DC meeting set up, call the district office back and say you tried.

Step Three: Get ready. Our Advocacy Toolkit ([link removed]) has tips and suggestions for in-person and remote meetings in Washington that apply just as well to a district office meeting.

Step Four: Follow Up. Send a thank you email summarizing the conversation. And in a few weeks send something on ECCA or local education issues, or anything else of interest so you can build the relationship.

Also, you don’t have to let us know how this all works out but I would be interested. I’m at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])

For a full list of ECCA Lobby Day Information visit: [link removed] ([link removed])

Scott MacConomy, Director of Policy ad Government Affairs at the Secular Coalition for America, wears a blue suit and stands with his arms crossed over his chest in front of the United States Capitol Building.

Your advocate,

Scott MacConomy
Director of Policy and Government Affairs
Secular Coalition for America
Did someone forward this to you? You can sign up at secular.org ([link removed]) with your email and zip code.

The Secular Coalition for America works every day to defend the separation of religion and government and to fight anti-democratic ideologies like Christian nationalism. Your support for this work is vital.

Donate to protect equal rights for nonreligious Americans! ([link removed])

P.S. Please consider leaving a legacy gift to the Secular Coalition for America ([link removed]) . The protection of our secular values requires eternal vigilance.

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