Report Fom Our Second Lobby Day Against the Death Penalty This Year

Yesterday, we were at the Texas capitol from 9:30 to 1 AM meeting with legislators about HB 2267 to end the death penalty under the Law of Parties, talking to the media and testifying at the hearing on the Sharon Keller impeachment resolution.

We spoke with members of the Calendars Committee about the Law of Parties and were encouraged by what we heard from a couple of offices. We also ran into Terri Hodge in the hall and exchanged a few hugs and thank yous.

While we were there, we updated our friends and supporters online around the world by posting to our blog, using Twitter and uploading videos while we were still at the capitol to Facebook and YouTube, all good examples of using social media tools to affect change and build a movement, and a good reason we should win the Social Media Leadership Award. Vote for us at the link below.

Several Texas anti-death penalty groups are jointly entered in the Jenzabar Social Media Leadership Award contest for $3,000. The winner is the entry that gets the most people to comment on their entry by April 30. To "vote", you leave a comment on the blog post at the link below.

http://thejenzabarfoundationblog.com/2009/04/24/texas-friends-and-allies-against-the-death-penalty

Our entry is called "Texas Friends and Allies Against the Death Penalty"

To vote for us to receive this award and the $3,000 prize, you just have to leave a comment on our nomination entry here:

http://thejenzabarfoundationblog.com/2009/04/24/texas-friends-and-allies-against-the-death-penalty

On that page scroll to the bottom, where you see "Leave a Comment", then enter your name, your email address, a website (you can skip that one if you don't have a website or you can enter any website you like), then enter your comment in the large box. Hit submit and that's all. The entry with the most comments wins.

Our group at the capitol yesterday included Scott Cobb (whose birthday was yesterday), Gloria Rubac, Crystal Wilson, Terri Been (sister of Jeff Wood), Lawrence Foster (grandfather of Kenneth Foster,jr) and Kenneth Foster Sr (father of Kenneth). We were joined later at the hearing by Hooman Hedayati, who gave some great testimony to the committee on Sharon Keller.

Here is a video of a news report on Austin TV that includes a statement by Terri Been and shots of us in the press conference by Lon Burnam.



Other videos we took during the day are on YouTube, including this video of the press conference.



We took this video of Lon Burnam around 12:30 AM last night. His message to our friends and supporters is "Call your state representative" and urge them to support the impeachment proceedings against Keller. We got the impeachment ball rolling last Fall when we approached Lon with the idea of impeaching Keller.

The Texas House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence took testimony on April 27, 2009 on Lon Burnam's resolution to impeach Sharon Keller.

Watch video of Hooman Hedayati testifying.