Between the campfires and sunscorched miles, Arizona has offered up some incredible opportunities to strike at the heart of the mission. In Phoenix, I met with the a staffer from the office of Senator Jon Kyl, the second-highest ranking Republican in the US Senate, to discuss why international development makes the world a safer place and America a stronger country. I was joined in the meeting by two local organizers, Cory and Megan, who have their own unique ties to the issue through relationships with local refugees and a history of activism around mass atrocity prevention. Senator Kyl’s staffer agreed with many of our points – especially that by investing in education, food security, global health, and poverty alleviation, the United States can help prevent the spread of extremism and keep potentially huge problems small and far away. As the staffer said, ”If we don’t pay attention to these places, someone else will.”
I specifically asked Senator Kyl’s office to support the international development funding requests in President Obama’s proposed 2013 budget, with special emphasis on the line items focused on strengthening democratic institutions, peace and security initiatives (including food security), and fully funding the operating budgets for USAID and the State Department. Kyl’s staffer assured me that, ”Conceptually, the senator believes strongly in these things,” and agreed that all three are relevant to US national security and economic prosperity. But, due to the complicated budget negotiations process in Washington, he couldn’t guarantee that the Senator would support a budget that included each – or any – of those requests. It’s up to Megan, Cory, and other Arizona residents now to keep the pressure on Kyl’s office to ensure that funding for international development remains a part of whatever budget boils up out of the Washington goo. If you live in Arizona, I encourage you to tweet your support for international development at Senator Kyl (@senjonkyl) and Senator John McCain (@senjohnmccain).
Whether or not you live in Arizona, you should consider setting up a meeting with your Member of Congress. You don’t have to be an expert to make an impact – it is really incredible what just a few meetings with constituents can do to a Congressperson’s decision-making process. Your member of Congress just needs to know this issue is important to you. I’m happy to share talking points and walk you start-to-finish through setting up a meeting if you’re thinking about lobbying – just hit me up on Twitter or Facebook to get started.
Traveling Arizona, it’s hard not to be stunned by the stark immense-ness of the landscape. The desert stretches on as far as the eye can see, dotted by cacti and hedged in by mountains too far away to make out clearly. Riding eastward, the flat, blonde sand gives way to craggy volcanic rubble, then the vast, scraggly grasslands of Apache Nation. Yesterday, I climbed more than four thousand feet into the Tonto National Forest, where the cactus outnumber trees and huge sandstone formations pile up on each other like outsized sandcastles. While my arms are burned brown from the sun, this morning I awoke to a silver dusting of frost on my tent – the surest sign that the desert must be coming to an end soon.
A few more days of climbing lie ahead before I cross the Continental Divide into New Mexico and will be meeting with Senator Tom Udall’s staff (@SenatorTomUdall). The mountains visible from my bed tonight are snowcapped and temperatures are expected to drop well below freezing, which means it’s time to break out the heavy-duty gloves and shoe covers and invest in some instant hot chocolate. Two states down, nine to go!
