Historic milestone reached in number of legislation cosponsors

Even as Senator Tom Coburn continues to obstruct the Senate's passage of the landmark LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, the bill today picked up three new Senate cosponsors and reached a historic milestone. The Act is now cosponsored by a majority of US Senators, and is the most widely-supported Africa related legislation in at least 35 years (as far back as electronic archives will allow us to go!).

Put another way: what we're doing is working. Thousands of you have conducted lobby meetings to reach this point. When this bill reaches President Obama's desk, this level of support from Congress will send a clear message about the need for him to step up to the plate.

Four key Senate champions of the bill - Russ Feingold (D-WI), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and Jim Inhofe (R-OK) - released a joint statement today to mark the historic occasion.

"The level of support for this legislation demonstrates unprecedented bipartisan consensus that the United States should work to bring a lasting end to Africa’s longest running rebel war,” Feingold said.  “Last year alone, the Lord’s Resistance Army killed thousands of innocent civilians and abducted thousands more.  With their support for this bill, senators are sending a clear message that this is unacceptable and that the international community, with the leadership of the United States, must do more to protect civilians and prevent further atrocities by the LRA."

"There has not been this magnitude of bipartisan sponsorship on Africa legislation for over three decades.  The Lord’s Resistance Army has continued its reign of terror in Africa for nearly twenty five years, abducting tens of thousands of children for child soldiers or sex slaves, killing hundreds of thousands, and displacing millions.  The United States must work with the international community to bring Joseph Kony and his terrorist organization to justice and help provide protection and assistance to those who have suffered at the hands of the LRA," Brownback said.

This action from Senators is in response to the unprecedented mobilization from supporters of Resolve Uganda and our partners at Invisible Children and Enough Project.

Clearly, we're having an impact. But major obstacles remain to the bill's passage and we need to keep going - sign up here to help us overcome Senator Coburn's hold on the Senate bill, and sign up here to organize a Hometown Shakedown lobby meeting to help us get the House version of the bill up to the level of support we have in the Senate.