From the Desk of John Isaacs

To: Council members
From: John Isaacs, Executive Director

RE: Updates from the Hill

It’s been less than a month since President Obama has been in office, and we’ve already begun to see positive shifts from the failed policies of the past 8 years.

President Obama has spoken several times – most notably in a Feb. 12 press conference – about the need to engage Iran, especially on the issue of nuclear non-proliferation. A few days earlier, Vice President Biden spoke in Munich and expressed the administration’s desire to make a clean break from the foreign policies of the Bush administration – especially on Russia. Such encouraging statements within the first 100 days of the new administration send a strong signal that we can expect serious progress on arms control.

Last Thursday (right after we got news that $1 billion of nuclear weapons-related funding was stripped from the stimulus package, due in large part to your efforts), I met with a group of leading arms control advocates at the Council’s office for a strategy session on nuclear arms reductions. In the near term, we are working to ensure that the Obama administration takes a positive approach to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which lays the groundwork for nuclear reductions in Russia and the United States and is set to expire at the end of this year.

Overall on the arms control front, things are looking positive with strong bi-partisan support for non-proliferation in Congress. However, there is still a lot of work to be done in rallying support for non-proliferation and a world without nuclear weapons. We’ll need a lot of activism across the country on this issue this year, so please stay tuned.

On the political side, even though the rest of the country might still have a small case of 2008 election-itis, our team here at the Council is already gearing up for the 2010 elections. Republicans again have to defend more Senate seats than Democrats, 19 seats compared to 17.

At this point, five GOP Senators have announced their retirements at the end of this term, compared to only one Democrat. Open seats are frequently highly competitive. You can find more information about the 2010 Senate elections in a recent report I wrote here. We’re looking into some early Senate endorsements as I write, and you’ll be the first to know once we make any decisions. There are also some exciting special elections in the House of Representatives, which you can read about here.

Only two months into the year, our new membership program is growing stronger by the day. We’re going to need your support as we work to promote an ambitious agenda, which includes garnering key support to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, negotiating important arms control agreements, promoting diplomacy with Iran, and blocking attempts to deploy expensive missile defense systems that don't work and only aggravate our relationship with Russia.

More than anything, we’re going to need your support as we head into the 2010 election cycle. Conservatives are going to do anything they can to stop the momentum that we built last year. It will take all of us, working together, to keep it going.

Thank you for all that you do.