National Grange Fly-In

The PA State Grange was proud to have 9 or our members attend the National Grange Legislative Fly-In Sunday and Monday, May 22 & 23, 2011.

Members included Betsy Huber (Chester Co.), Stacy Bruker (Perry Co.), Ron and Dottie Houtz (Centre Co.), Libby Greene (Northumberland Co.), Corin Fuhrman and Allison Lytle (Lancaster Co.), Dina Zug, (Juniata Co.) and Carl Meiss (York Co.).

The PA State Grange rented a 15 passenger van to drive everyone to D.C. We left from the Farm Show Complex parking lot at 2:00 p.m. Sunday and arrived at National Grange Headquarters around 4:15 where we were greeted by staff members and met other Grangers from around the country who were attending the Fly-In. National Grange President, Ed Luttrell welcomed everyone and then turned the program over to Nicole Payla Wood (Legislative Director) and Grace Boatright (Program Assistant). They explained the process for the next two days (we only stayed through Monday) and handed out information for us to present to our Congressmen and Senators during our meetings. We also got to meet Amanda Brozana, the new Communications Director for National Grange (also a native Pennsylvanian).

Nicole gave us some background on the legislative initiatives that we would be discussing with our U.S. Representatives and Senators. These included asking for support of S. 575 involving Interchange Fees and the Dodd-Frank Act, asking Congress to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) as part of the Affordable Care Act, and seeking bipartisan Congressional support and passage of HR 872, the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act, amending FIFRA and CWA to conclusively declare that, under both laws, no permit is required for the labeled use of any registered pesticide.

Nicole and her staff had scheduled appointments for all Grange members to meet with their respective Congressmen and Senators. Unfortunately, for PA Grangers, we would only be in D.C. Monday so we could not all attend the meeting with Senator Toomey's office Tuesday morning, but our Legislative Liaison, Betsy Huber, met with the Senator's staff on behalf of our PA delegation.

After this briefing at the Headquarters building, we headed across the Potomac to the Applebee's in Alexandria for dinner before proceeding to the Quality Inn for a good night's sleep.

Everyone was up bright and early Monday morning to get breakfast at the hotel before we headed south to Mount Vernon, George Washington's homestead, for a private tour arranged by National Grange. We were met there by the rest of the Grange group, toured the mansion and grounds and participated in a special presentation of a wreath (placed by our own Ed Luttrell) and the Pledge of Allegiance and a reading of Washington's Prayer at the tomb of George and Martha.

Prior to boarding buses, we picked up box lunches and toured the Mount Vernon Gift Shop. We then headed to the Capitol and the various offices of the House and Senate for our individual meetings with staff members.

I met with Marianne Myers from Congressman Platts office at 1:30 and we had a very pleasant and informative meeting. Marianne was very receptive to my requests and promised to pass along my views to the Congressman (Congressman Platts has been invited to speak at numerous Community and Pomona Grange meetings in the York County area throughout the years and has been very supportive of the Grange and our legislative policies).

At 2:30 our entire PA delegation met at Senator Casey's office with three of his staff. We explained our legislative policies and requests as we had done in other offices, but Casey's staff did not appear to me (and to others in our group) to be nearly as receptive to constituents' viewpoints.

There were some other meetings scheduled for 3:30 and then we all met at Union Station to board the van for our trip back to PA at around 4:30. We made one stop on the way out of D.C. at the Grange Headquarters to drop Betsy's suitcase off which resulted in a minor mishap with the van and a vehicle belonging to a Uniformed Secret Service Agent (you'll have to ask Stacy about that for more details since I was inside the Headquarters Building at the time).

We made one stop at the Mountain Gate Restaurant in Thurmont, MD for their buffet dinner on our way home and arrived back at the Farm Show Complex around 9:00 p.m.

Overall, I felt that the National Grange Fly-In was very well planned and successful. Thank you to National Grange President Ed Luttrell and his staff. I wish to thank all of our PA Grangers who attended. I think the two days were informative and educational as well as an opportunity for us to get together and enjoy each other's company.

Thank you to Betsy for making most of the arrangements and to Stacy for thinking to get a rental van when our numbers did not justify a bus as well as driving the home leg of our trip.

Carl Meiss
PA State Grange
President