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Good Morning,

Thank you to those who were able to join for the Board meeting. It was extremely helpful to me, and I appreciate the thoughtful input. I wanted to give you a quick update on the Rand Paul amendment and a few other items of interest.


1. Overwhelming Defeat of Paul Amendment. Late Friday evening, the Senate overwhelming defeated the Paul amendment 81-10 that called for cutting off aid to Libya, Egypt, Pakistan or any other country where our embassy is threatened. It was a big win given that the amendment was positioned as anti-foreign aid, rather than a statement about these three countries. Given the political environment this was no easy task, and it really showed that our efforts are working.

§ Senators Graham and McCain led the charge to defeat the bill and many of our friends spoke on the Senate floor including Ayotte, Chambliss, Isackson, Kerry, Leahy and others. They would not have felt as comfortable having this floor debate without the support that we have provided over the years.

§ Our coalition partners went into action with calls to offices. The rapid response team that we established really worked well.

§ Our state teams mobilized key community leaders to call their Senators. I was impressed with how quickly our local partners went into action.

§ And perhaps most importantly, on the day of the debate, we delivered a letter to the Senate from General Hagee and Admiral Loy, representing our military leaders. The letter was sighted numerous times during the debate, including by Senator McCain who read it in its entirety.
While we were confident the amendment would not pass, our goal was to isolate the isolationists and minimize the number of Senators supporting Paul. I was pleased to see nine Senators who supported a related effort by Paul last year, voting against Paul this year including Senators Barrasso (WY), Coburn (OK), Enzi (WY), Hutchinson (TX), Johnson (WI), Nelson (NE), Sessions (AL), Thune (SD), and Wicker (MS).
Of those that voted with Paul -- Senators Mike Crapo (R-ID), Jim DeMint (R-SC), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Mike Lee (R-UT), Jerry Moran (R-KS), James Risch (R-ID), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Richard Shelby (R-AL), and Pat Toomey (R-PA) – Toomey was the only disappointment. The full details of the debate are attached.
To give you an idea that Rand Paul’s opposition is not going away, here is just one of his many disturbing quotes from the debate: “I'm going to tell you the story today of a love affair. It's a story that is a steamy one. It's a story that of illicit behavior, of treachery, and of gluttony. It’s a story that involves intrigue and deception. It’s a story of unintended consequences, and it's a story of anger and violence. It is the story of American foreign aid.” Check out his PAC mailing, also attached.
When I think back to the dark days after the 2010 election where we feared that foreign assistance would be disproportionally cut and join the partisan divide, I am very proud of the impact we have had. It was a big victory and your leadership and support is a major contributor to our effort. Thank you and congratulations!


2. USGLC State Events. This has been a very busy week in the field where we are seeing growing interest and energy around our issues.

§ Columbus, Ohio. USGLC hosted a major event on Friday in Ohio featuring former Senator Bill Frist and former Governor Bill Richardson, who were both extremely thoughtful on our issues. Partnering with the local Chamber of Commerce and World Affairs Council, we had over 250 people discussing the importance of global development and diplomacy. We expect some helpful press and were pleased that staff from many of the congressional delegation attended.


§ Greenville, SC. USGLC hosted a grasstops event on Tuesday with Senator Lindsey Graham and USAID Administrator Raj Shah with the Greenville business community. The roundtable discussion focused on the link between development and our economy and company representatives from Michelin, GE, Boeing and several other firms are looking forward to working with us.


§ Reno and Las Vegas, NV. Tomorrow, our team will be in Las Vegas with one of our military leaders hosting events for the veteran community. The response has been overwhelmingly positive which will be important as we mobilize them to engage their Congressional delegation.


§ Southern States Conference Call. Finding ways to engage our activists in between visits and events has been a challenge so last week we tried a conference call with OPIC President Elizabeth Littlefield and our business leaders from several southern states. We had a great turnout and a vibrant discussion and are planning similar calls for other states.


3. Legislation on Transparency. We added our voice last week, praising Senators Kerry, Rubio and Lugar and Congressman Poe and Berman, when the SFRC joined the House in passing The Foreign Assistance Transparency and Accountability Act (S. 3310). The legislation will extend the effort established by State and USAID for foreign assistance accountability and transparency to all government agencies.


4. Coming Up. Lots coming up, but here are a few highlights.

§ Romney at CGI. USGLC Board member, Ron Cordes, will report back to us after Romney delivers his first, and likely only speech of the campaign, on development Tuesday morning at CGI.

§ Virginia Event. We are gearing up for our next major event in Richmond, VA with General Anthony Zinni and surrogates from both campaigns on October 2.

§ First Debate. This week we will provide both campaigns debate material on our issues as they gear up for the all-important October 3 debate.

§ Salons with Daschle and Hayden. Our next “plum book” salon events are scheduled for the same day in mid-October with Tom Daschle and General Mike Hayden hosting Democrat/Republican foreign policy advisors respectively.

We will keep an eye out for any relevant speeches at UNGA and CGI this week, and now that Congress is gone, we will be primarily focused on outreach to candidates and preparing for the lame duck session. It was a challenging, but important week for the USGLC and the resounding defeat of the Paul amendment is a credit to our work together. Congratulations to you for your continued leadership.

Many thanks, Liz