Blue Roses

This is an interesting article about Brad Whitford (Josh) and how he helped pass a bill on autism, and also got it incorporated into the show. That was my favorite episode of all I've seen, I think. It's all told through e-mails the staffers are sending their parents, so we get different perspectives. There's a senator who, unbeknownst to anyone, has a grandson with autism. The new Health and Welfare bill didn't have anything about autism on it, so he had a fillibuster to prevent a vote. He talked and talked for so many hours, and he was old and he was sick. Then Donna realized why he was doing this, and the President, a grandfather, ordered the staff to called up other senators to help out, those who had grandkids, because every grandparent could understand what he was doing. See, in a fillibuster, you have to remain standing and keep talking. If you sit down, lean on something, or stop talking, it's over and you can't get the floor back. But you can yield to a question. So every single senator that was a grandparent went in, in the middle of the night, and asked him to yield to a question, one at a time. These questions were huge, like 32, 33 part questions, all about autism. So the senator was able to sit and rest while the others asked the questions, and info about autism was spread around. The fillibuster lasted so long that the Senate was unable to vote on the bill, so it was dropped for next time, and they got the autism thing on it for that vote. Isn't that awesome?