Sen. Chris Dodd

Just a few hours after the exciting announcement that the Cardin-Lugar Transparency amendment had passed the Senate, I was walking by the Capitol when I ran into none other than the Chairman of Senate Banking Committee himself, Senator Chris Dodd!

On behalf of all ONE members, I was able to congratulate and thank the senator for his support and leadership in person! He told me that he “loves ONE” and thanked us for our advocacy efforts, emphasizing what a BIG victory the transparency amendment is in the fight against poverty. We’re grateful to Senators Dodd, Cardin, Lugar and other champions who fought hard for the world’s poorest people.

To mark Mother’s Day yesterday, Senator Chris Dodd and former Senator Bill Frist co-authored an op-ed on the need to “nurture the future by giving children a basic security that no military could ever match”. The Senators write at length about maternal and child health:

Children and pregnant women are dying needlessly. Americans know it’s wrong to let these deaths continue when we know how to prevent them.

The tools to stop this are proven and often very low-cost. Using them, we could prevent an estimated two-thirds of 8.8 million annual child deaths and three-quarters of 343,000 maternal deaths.

Some poor countries have already made astounding progress — thanks to a combination of foreign aid, national will and sustainable strategies for getting basic health care to poor mothers and their children.

The most effective solutions are not high tech. Exclusive breastfeeding, micro-nutrients, antibiotics, anti-malarials, vaccines, oral-rehydration therapy and ready-to-eat foods could save millions of children each year. Skilled attendance at births, as well as basic prenatal and postnatal care could prevent most maternal deaths.

The countries with the highest number of child and maternal deaths also have the largest health care provider shortages, according to the new report, “State of the World’s Mothers 2010” from Save the Children. Yet, the report also shows that we can address this without having to confront the extreme challenge of producing large numbers of additional doctors to meet the estimated global shortfall of 4.3 million health care professionals.

You can read the full piece here.

On the floor of the Senate this afternoon, Senator Chris Dodd (CT) announced that he, along with Senator Richard Lugar (IN) intend to introduce legislation instructing the Secretary Geithner to work with other nations to forgive Haiti’s outstanding international debt.

Key excerpt (roughly transcribed, emphasis mine):

Therefore, it’s critical that we work with the Haitian authorities in that nation and others to build and reform the institutions, to bolster the rule of law in Haiti that will be necessary to lift Haitians out of poverty, rebuild the country and attract and maintain foreign direct investment to jump-start that nation’s economy.

Throughout this process, we must not get bogged down by old formulas and hardened ways of doing business as usual. We must think outside the box, as the expression goes, marshal the next resources and creativity of our friends from the region.

And the Haitian people must devise and be a part of a medium-and long-term strategy nor this effort. To that end, Senator Lugar of Indiana and I, the former chairman of the committee, will be introducing legislation shortly to all in help to speed Haiti’s recovery by instructing the Secretary of the Treasury to work with other nations and to relieve Haiti of their outstanding international debt, including the debt incurred through 2011. That ought to be something that every nation agrees to do. In the absence of which I don’t know how you can ever talk about economic recovery to saddle a country that doesn’t have a government today to meet those obligations. Our legislation will help to spur economic activity which is essential if we’re going to have any kind of a recovery process.

Here’s the video:

ONE super volunteer Sammi Fredenburg of Seattle, Washington, arrived in DC today so that she can present at the Global Child Survival Act hearing on the Hill tomorrow. Senator Dodd and Former Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist, M.D., will also be speaking.

She walked by my desk just now so I insisted she had to wait while I got a photo. Above, Sammi poses with Josh Chernila who works both Internet and field for ONE.

ONE member Libby Pederson outdid herself this weekend in Iowa, delivering “On the Record” campaign petitions from more than 50,000 ONE members to four of the presidential campaigns. The petitions ask the candidates to go on the record, in writing and on camera, to tell us exactly what they plan to do to end extreme poverty and global disease.

But we won’t hear back from them until they hear from us, and that’s what petition delivery is all about. Check it out below.

Here’s Libby Pederson delivering a petition to a Chris Dodd campaign staffer.

There she is again outside Joe Biden’s HQ.

And inside Mike Huckabee’s office.

What a trooper, once again, handing petitions to a staffer from the Barack Obama campaign.

-Aaron Banks

Simply amazing. ONE’s Marine Michael Castaldo speaks with presidential hopeful Senator Chris Dodd in New Hampshire on Sunday about the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Global Child Survival Act and ONE !

Maria Gonlazes, “UNH 4 ONE” member, taped it. Go ONE!

-Matthew Bartlett, ONE Regional Organizer

Jackie Dodd, wife of Senator Dodd, recently stopped off in Las Vegas for an old fashioned BBQ—and the weather here in Las Vegas was even bearable for an August evening outdoors!

State Senator John Lee (a ONE supporter) introduced me to Mrs. Dodd and she quickly took the white band my 2 year old daughter Gabby offered and said “Oh you must know how good my husband is on your issues.” As the mother of 2 small girls herself, she reiterated both she and Senator Dodd’s commitment to making sure that children all over the world have access to the things they need to stay healthy.

I also had the opportunity to thank Mrs. Dodd for her husband’s work in the Senate. He’s been a leader on the Global Child Survival Act, a legislative priority for ONE members.

Last weekend, ONE volunteers went to Sen. Chris Dodd’s Vegas office opening, Gov. Bill Richardson’s Reno office opening, and a BBQ with Elizabeth Edwards.

At the Dodd event, I spoke with the senator and thanked him for his support on the Foreign Operations budget this year. He spoke about the need to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa and recalled some experiences from his time in the Peace Corps.

Reno ONE volunteers attended Bill Richardson’s Northern Nevada office opening. They thanked him for his commitment in the fight against extreme poverty – and for his endorsement of ONE Vote ’08.

Gov. Richardson mentioned that everywhere he goes, ONE volunteers are always there to greet him.

Thurdsay night, Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Christopher Dodd, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson participated in a live, televised forum at Howard University.

ONE volunteers seized this opportunity to send these presidential candidates a message when they arrived at the forum. Each volunteer got one sign that said one of the following words, “What will you do to end extreme poverty and AIDS?” We set up across from a sea of presidential candidate supporters and signs. We could tell that lots of people were intrigued by our unique message. Cars slowed down while they passed us on busy Georgia Avenue to see what we had to say! Our group traveled a few blocks down the sidewalk (in order!), shouting our message so other groups saw us, too. A few limos and town cars with dark tinted windows passed by us, so we can only speculate on who may have been inside!

An hour into our demonstration, our shouting was overpowered by a torrential storm, but that didn’t stop us until our signs were dripping ink and unintelligible!

This was just one of many times the candidates and their supporters will see ONE in the crowd urging both to make ending extreme poverty and AIDS a top priority in the 2008 elections.

By the way, a similar forum with the Republican candidates will occur in September at Morgan State University in Baltimore. Read more on the presidential forums here.

Yesterday, our Marine ONE, Michael Castaldo and his family did a “double banding” of both Sen. Dodd and Rep. Shea-Porter in Rochester, NH.

Michael had previously banded two candidates in one day when he banded Sen. Obama and Mayor Giuliani at different events, but this was the first time he spoke with two elected officials at one event.

Michael thanked Sen. Dodd for his work in the Senate and thanked Rep. Shea-Porter for joining in a bi-partisan effort to defeat an amendment last week that would have severely cut life-saving and poverty-reducing funds for the developing world. He also thanked her for voting for HR2764 which passed the House and included more than a 2 billion dollar increase in US efforts to combat global poverty and global disease – something that the ONE Campaign was urging members to call their representatives on last week.

Good people on both sides of the aisle in DC are making real, and concrete efforts, to fight global hunger and extreme poverty. By recognizing their efforts on behalf of all Americans, we can encourage them to do even more and ultimately make poverty history.