To the Statehouse (again)

Well, it has been wild.

The Next Step, along with the eight other projects in the Maine Coaltion to End Domestic Violence (http://www.mcedv.org/) sent a donated schoolbus (thanks, Sumner!) full of activists to the appropriations committee hearings re: the TOTAL loss of state dv funds.

It was a long bus trip, even with our paralegal, Missy, baking great chocolate chip cookies. The heat was not on in the bus and most of us could not feel our toes by the time we got to the capitol.

Inside, we were told to put on name tags and collect "talking points" (little printed bits of info that we wanted the politicians to know about our services and why to keep them) -- then we were to proceed to the Hall of Flags and have a "rally" in the presence of our state rep.s.

Well, we got in the door and basically became bits of seaweed on top of a huge, angry ocean of protestors. We did manage to collect dv badges to wear, but there was no such thing as an orderly procession to anywhere. I can only describe the entire three plus floors of the State House as a slightly hippie-esque mosh pit. We were packed onto every floorspace so tight that people's badges were getting stuck to fellow protestor's backs, butts and legs from squeezing between point A and point B. Very few people even heard the rally, but everyone chanted and screamed a lot.

The Statehouse security guards were beside themselves (and so were they). Cops kept wading through us and the one near us kept yelling (to a distinctly gender-MIXED throng, might I add): "WE NEED A PATH! WE NEED A PATH HERE, LADIES...!" During the actual rally, security swam to the mike and announced that the crowds were a security risk and the building would be closed if some of us didn't go to an auxiliary building and listen through speakers. The crowd around the mike responded to his rather tactlessly churlish tone by chanting, "CLOSE IT DOWN! CLOSE IT DOWN!" But we fortunately avoided that. I was too packed in to notice, but apparently some people who were nearer to doors did go to the auxiliary building and avert the crisis.

Speeches were made, testimony was given, hands were shaken and politicians were rattled. Now it is breath-holding time. If you have not written to your state representatives about these dv cuts, it is not too late to do so.

MAINE CAN DO BETTER!