With the help of you and people like you, “Save Small Business from the CPSIA” was voted one of top ten ideas for change by Change.org. As I understand it, these top ten ideas will be presented to president-elect Obama in an effort to encourage him to influence change in this over-reaching law that could effectively put an end to crafting and reselling handmade items for children.
Some cool numbers:
- This Cause was ranked in the top ten out of 7,847 ideas. (Only the top ten get presented formally to the President).
- There were 12,280 votes in the second round of voting by people out there just like you and me. (Don’t ask me what happened in the first round, I came late to this party. That’s a change.org question.)
- There are currently 474 endorsements by nonprofits and bloggers, including me and many of my readers. (Woo Hoo, Go us!)
This work is far from over. The law is already on the books and set to go into effect on February 10th. The key here is to mobilize to effect change from this point forward.
Text from the change.org website informs us:
There’s an area where you can make suggestions and give input regarding how/why handcrafted items should be an exception to the CSPIA’s prohibitively burdensome testing criteria. If you’ve got a strong opinion about this whatsoever, I urge you to get involved, whether in this forum or another.
We crafters and/or resellers are, in general, a pretty laid-back bunch of folks. Usually, that kind of approach works just fine, thank you very much. But please consider how this law would effect your ability and the ability of other crafters to make and distribute beautiful handmade items for children. There is real (negative) impacton us with this legislation. It’s likely that well-meaning elected officials didn’t consider how their vote for this messy law would effect people like you and me. It’s not too late to let them know now. Don’t wait. Something can be done about this.
For more information on the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act, also known as HR 4040, click on the following links. And thanks!
https://shannonsays.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/sew-important-defend-your-ability-to-craft-for-kids/
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/save_handmade_toys_from_the_cpsia
Text of the actual Act: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpsia.pdf
http://coolmompicks.com/savehandmade/
http://savekidsresale.squarespace.com/
A similar post tailored to resellers will be posted on one of my other blogs, What Matters Most, at http://matteringmost.wordpress.com/.
[EDIT: Please note the first comment from Jon below, which gives GREAT information and an important link to follow regarding (different site, folks!) www.change.gov, which is another site you’ll want to explore, along with explanatory links. Let’s stick together and get some stuff accomplished here!]
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January 17, 2009 at 12:13 am
jonpincus
Congratulations crafters indeed! The competition was really tough. I thought it was a great idea changing the idea’s title for the second round — it made it a lot easier for people to understand the broad consequences of CPSIA.
Has anybody submitted something to change.gov’s Citizens Briefing Book? Unlike change.org, it’s directly affiliated with the Obama administration. It’s been going on for a few days already and it might be hard to catch up (as I write this, the top idea has over 6000 votes and Get FISA Right has, um, 18) but it’s worth a try … if there is a link that you’d like to point people to, please add it to the thread at http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=327 In the main post, I talk about the potential for cross-promotion for the various change.org finalists, and use FISA and CPSIA as an example.
jon
January 17, 2009 at 12:36 am
shannonsays
Thanks for stopping by and commenting Jon! I cross-referenced your comment and links to my similar post at my What Matters Most blog post, Resellers, E-bayers, Craigslisters, and Garage Sale Divas, Pat Yourselves on the Back! . I appreciate your expertise and your assistance in spreading the word!
January 17, 2009 at 12:32 am
Resellers, E-bayers, Craigslisters, and Garage Sale Divas, Pat Yourselves on the Back! « What Matters Most
[…] Please note the first comment from Jon at Yes! Congratulations Crafters! on What the Craft?!, which gives GREAT information and an important link to follow regarding (different site, folks!) […]
January 17, 2009 at 6:27 pm
jonpincus
My pleasure, Shannon!
More about change.gov: the deadline is Sunday at 6 p.m. (Eastern I assume). There are several CPSIA ideas in the change.gov competition, right now none of them with more than a couple thousand points. For promotional purposes, it’s best to pick a single idea and get behind it.
Our idea is all the way up to 310 points, or a whopping 31 votes; we send messages to about 3000-4000 people this morning, and here’s what we’re doing to promote it.
At some point when things calm down a little I’d love to find out more about how CPSIA supporters rounded up all those endorsements. I approached a lot of bloggers who have the same view our group does on FISA and the PATRIOT Act and many of them didn’t even bother to respond. The endorsements we got were great, and help from a couple of them made a huge difference on the last day, but we wound up with only 29. Suggestions wanted!
January 17, 2009 at 6:27 pm
jonpincus
oops. sorry about the formatting there. if you get a chance to edit it and fix the HTML that’d be great.