Announcements: Coalition for Movie Captioning (CMC) Needs Your Quick Action

Announcement from the Coalition for Movie Captioning: We have a great opportunity to rapidly increase captioned movies in theaters across the U.S.

A movie captioning amendment proposed by Senator Mark Dayton of Minnesota was included in the Senate JOBS Act, which passed the Senate in May 2004. Senator Dayton's amendment would give a tax credit of 50% to both movie studios and theaters for making captioned movies available, retroactive to January 2004. Unfortunately the amendment was not included when the House of Representatives passed its version of the bill last week.

The fate of the captioning amendment will be in the hands of a conference committee, whose members are to be selected by the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee. We need your help contacting four members of Congress (listed below) who will be on the conference committee. Please ask them to support the movie captioning amendment. Share your personal stories about going to the movies to show them how important captioned movies are to you.

A quick phone call can make a big difference. The calls are tallied by staff and show how many people are concerned about an issue. Call either the Washington office or one of their home offices.

Note that mail sent to Congress is now being irradiated and inspected, which can slow down the delivery. Action on the trade bill may happen very quickly, so please call, fax, or e–mail.

Sample Statement

Here’s a sample statement you can use when contacting any of the offices:

“I am contacting you to support the movie captioning credit amendment in the Senate JOBS bill. Captioning for movies is important to me because ...“

Who to Contact

• Rep. William Thomas of California
  Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee (Republican)
  2208 Rayburn House Office Building,
  Washington, DC 20515
  EMAIL: http://billthomas.house.gov/contact.asp
  CALL: D.C. Office – 202–225–2915 V
    Bakersfield – 661–327–3611 V
    Atascadero – 805–549–0390 (S. County)
      805–461–1034 (N.County)
  FAX: D.C. Office – 202–225–8798
    Atascadero – 805–461–1323
  



• Rep. Charles Rangel of New York
  Ranking member of the House (Democrat)
  2354 Rayburn House Office Building,
  Washington, DC 20515
  CALL: D.C. Office – 202–225–4365 V
    New York – 212–663–3900 V
  FAX: D.C. Office – 202–225–0816
  



• Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa
  Chair, Senate Finance Committee (Republican)
  (Accepted the captioning amendment in the managers’ package in the Senate; thank him and ask for his continued support during the conference agreement process)
  135 Hart Senate Building, Washington, DC 20510
  E-MAIL: http://grassley.senate.gov/webform.htm
  CALL: D.C. Office: 202–224–3744 V
    Cedar Rapids: 319–363–6832 V
    Council Bluffs: 712–322–7103 V
    Davenport: 563–322–4331 V
    Des Moines: 515–288–1145 V
    Sioux City: 712–233–1860 V
    Waterloo: 319–232–6657 V
  



• Senator Max Baucus of Montana
  Ranking Member of Senate Finance Committee (Democrat)
  (Accepted the captioning amendment in the managers’ package in the Senate; thank him and ask for his continued support during the conference agreement process)
  511 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510
  E-MAIL: http://baucus.senate.gov/emailmax.html
  CALL: 800–332–6106 from Montana
    D.C. Office: 202–224–2651 V
    Billings: 406–657–6790 V
    Bozeman: 406–586–6104 V
    Butte: 406–782–8700 V
    Great Falls: 406–761–1574 V;
    Helena: 406–449–5480 V
    Kalispell: 405–756–1150 V
    Missoula: 406–329–3123 V
  TTY: D.C. Office – 202–224–1998
    Great Falls – 406–452–1117
  FAX: D.C. Office – 202–224–4700
  

About CMC:
The Coalition for Movie Captioning (CMC), established in 1999, is a consortium of major national organizations of deaf or hard of hearing people addressing the theater access needs of 28 million deaf, hard of hearing, late– deafened and deaf–blind consumers. CMC’s goal is for all first–run movies to be accessible to people with hearing loss. The charter (founding) members of CMC are the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the American Society for Deaf Children, the Association of Late–Deafened Adults, the Cochlear Implant Association, Inc., the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer Advocacy Network, Deaf Seniors of America, the League for the Hard of Hearing, the National Association of the Deaf, Self Help for Hard of Hearing People, Inc., and TDI.

For more information about CMC, see
http://www.tdi-online.org/ tdi/fs_cmc_position_paper.html