Book Review 2013 U. S. Congressional Directory / 113th Congress First Session Directory by Valerie Sisneros
This directory is a great resource for all concerned citizens who are becoming more involved in the process of self-government as prescribed by our Founding Fathers. It is a slender, compact spiral notebook and contains about 200 pages of everything you need to contact every elected official in Washington D. C., and also the Governors of every state in the Union. There is a picture and a short bio on each one. Interesting, I thought, was the bio on the President. It gives his birth date, his qualifications, and religion as:“ Attorney, Lecturer, Christian”. You can access the titles, names, and phone numbers of the Leadership and Officers of the House and Senate, and their assistants. There are lists of all the standing Committees and Subcommittees in the House and Senate, including every member in each committee. There are 25 pages of Committees and Subcommittees in the House and 13 pages in the Senate, small print, single- spaced. Looking at the sheer number of those committees really shines the light on the actual size and scope of the government bureaucracy. The Directory also includes District Maps of every state with census information on population, broken down by the percentage of people by ethnicity, the number of registered voters, and the Senators and Representatives for each district. There is a Re-election Schedule containing all of the House and Senate seats that will be up for reelection in 2014, 2016, and 2018. Good Information. There are tips for Communicating with Congress by phone and e-mail, How a Bill Becomes Law, and a Legislative Glossary. The explanations of the Roles of Congressional Staff will help to make sure you are contacting the right person for your particular issue. There is even contact info for all of the Key Media Websites. For a small book, it contains just about everything you need to participate in our republican form of government. It is available from the C-SPAN Store for $ 12.95 at C-SPAN. org
WISE WORDS
“ Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point, it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals— that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government— that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen’ s protection against the government.”
-Ayn Rand
Pono Press, June 2013, Page 9