This webpage is here to help coordinate dental students' visits to Capitol Hill. We are hoping to get maximum coverage of Congress, and ensure students can visit their home members of Congress. This will help ASDA members from all schools see who is covering which members, and will allow those students attending schools out of their home state to see who they can contact to join another appointment.

If people from your school want to attend another meeting (for example, someone from UCLA who is from Massachusetts wants to meet with Rep. Barney Frank) you’ll know who you’ll have to contact. Talk to your Legislative Coordinators if you have questions. Their contact information can be found on the National Leadership Directory page.

All appointments should take place on Tuesday, April 16, beginning at 9:30 a.m. 

Thanks! See you in D.C.

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Scheduling Congressional Appointments

Registered participants should schedule their congressional appointments as soon as possible (no later than Tuesday, April 9). To avoid double-booking appointments, have one person coordinate the congressional appointments and know upfront how many people will be coming with. If you have a large group of people, you may want split up so you can visit more offices.

How to schedule appointments: 

1. Enter your zip code at www.house.gov or www.senate.gov to display the legislators for your state and congressional district. Put in both the home zip codes of the attendees and the zip code of your school.
2. Call your legislators’ offices in Washington, D.C. and ask to speak with the offices’ scheduler (e-mails can often go overlooked). You can use this sample script if you’d like to. Identify yourself as a student from your dental school and that you'd like to set a 15-30 minute appointment for Tuesday, April 16 for X people. Your first appointment can be scheduled as early as 9:30 a.m. after the photo at the Capitol. Allow at least 25 minutes between House/House-side meetings and at least 35 minutes between House/Senate-side meetings. Consider making all house appointments and all senate appointments in similar time frames (ie: all house in morning and senate in afternoon). Be flexible and accept a visit with a staff member if you cannot see the Representative or Senator.
3. Report an appointment by clicking the "Add a New Row" link below and entering the appropriate information and submit. You can go back to edit your appointment by clicking on the "Edit" link next to your entry in the table.

Sample script for scheduling appointments: 

• Can I speak with the office scheduler?
  • I am ______ from ____ Dental School in your state or district from the state you represent.
  • The National Dental Student Lobby Day for the American Student Dental Association. I will be on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, April 16 and would like to meet with Senator _____/Representative_____ or a member of their legislative staff.
   
• The issues I would like to discuss include:
  • Student debt reduction
  • Taxes on dental devices
   
• Do you have any available appointment times on that day?

Other tips: 

• Assume that it will take at least 20 minutes to walk from the House side (south) to the Senate side (north) of Capitol Hill.
• There are three House office buildings (Cannon, Longworth and Rayburn) and three Senate office buildings (Hart, Russell and Dirksen).
• Remember to be flexible and accept a visit with a staff member if you cannot see the Congressman or Senator. Request 15 to 30 minutes per meeting.
• COMMUNICATE with the chapters in your district! If you have students from other states attending Lobby Day on behalf of your school, consider asking if there are other appointments to attend. It’s not unreasonable, for example, for a Colorado resident going to school in Nebraska to attend appointments for lawmakers from both states.
• If you have multiple schools in your state please coordinate so that multiple appointments are not made in the same office.
• For further assistance contact your Legislative Coordinator for your district for assistance.