On June 11th, section 722 of the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act passed at the subcommittee level. If this rider goes into effect, it would stop the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from banning the electric shock devices used at the Judge Rotenberg Center. Check out our plain language explainer to learn more.
The full House Appropriations Committee will vote on the bill on July 10th. We have until July 10th to stop this bill and save the FDA’s power to ban electric shock torture. By calling and emailing today, we can take action to #StopTheShock!
First, check to see if your House Representative is on the Appropriations Committee. Check if they are on the member list here. If you are not sure who your Representative is, you can find out by putting in your ZIP Code here. If your Representative is on the Appropriations Committee, call the House switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to your Representative’s office. You can say “Please connect me to Representative [first and last name]’s office.”
Once you are connected to your Representative’s office, you can use our script:
My name is [your full name], and I am from [your city]. I am a constituent of Representative [Name]. I’m calling to ask Representative [Name] to oppose Section 722 of the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. This rider takes away the FDA’s ability to ban the use of electric skin shock for behavior modification. Only one institution in the country still uses electric shocks this way, and the UN found the practice to be torture in 2013. The FDA’s proposed rule to ban the devices this year received hundreds of public comments in support of the ban, and this bill would take that decision away. The House must make sure the people they represent are heard. Can I count on Representative [Name] to oppose this rider?
If your Representative is not on the House Appropriations Committee, there is still something you can do! You can call the staff leads of the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies subcommittee. Their contact information is:
Pam Miller (202-225-2638) and
Martha Foley (202-225-3481).
You can use this script to plan what you will say:
My name is [your full name], and I am from [your city]. I am a constituent of Representative [Name]. I’m calling to oppose Section 722 of the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. This rider takes away the FDA’s ability to ban the use of electric skin shock for behavior modification. Only one institution in the country still uses electric shocks this way, and the UN found the practice to be torture in 2013. The FDA’s proposed rule to ban the devices this year received hundreds of public comments in support of the ban, and this bill would take that decision away. The House must make sure the people they represent are heard. Please do whatever you can to get this rider removed!
Wondering what to expect from a call to your elected officials? Check out this guide to making a call to your Members of Congress. It is very important that we call many times between now and July 10th.
You can also send #StopTheShock emails using our tool here. If your Representative is on the House Appropriations Committee, you can email their office. If your Representative is not on this committee, you can email the subcommittee staff leads and other Committee staff. Our email tool will automatically email the right people for you. Then, get the word out by sharing on social media!
We’ve got call-in days running today and Thursday this week on our Facebook here. Share the event directly, or to retweet or share any of the social media posts we’ll have throughout the day pushing people to join in. Our online proxy calling system is down right now, so if you would like someone to place a call on your behalf, or if you want to volunteer to call for someone else, you can use a thread on our facebook event to do that!
Our community has spent years working to end the use of shock devices — and just last month, hundreds of us sent public comments to the FDA supporting their ban. Now we need to spring into action again to protect that ban at the Congressional level. Don’t let Congress forget that they work for us! Call and email today!