Mr. President, members of the Statewide Executive Board, honored guests:

Thank you for filing the committee chair with the re-appointment of Nadine Lefebvre. It is my honor to serve the membership in this capacity and the Women's Issues Committee looks forward to continuing our efforts to uphold our Mission Statement.

1. Since our last report in December 2006, we have welcomed Darleen Beltz Central Seat, to the Women's Issues Committee and we have had one teleconference.

2. We continue our dialogue with the Health Trust as they work towards a resolution of the cost and coding for women's preventive health care. According to Fred Brown, Chair of the Health Trust Board, they are working on moving on costs.

3. It is with great pleasure to report that 16 of us GGU workers are now able to provide health insurance benefits for their lifetime same sex partners.

Ballots have been printed, and it looks like there will be a statewide vote on April 3, 2007 to take away these benefits and prevent the state and possibly any other business entity from offering domestic partner benefits to same sex Alaskan couples.

If the April 3rd vote leads to a constitutional amendment in 2008, this would negatively impact most of the large companies that do business in Alaska.

Apparently about 55 gay state workers from the various unions have signed up for health benefits, pension and death benefits. Likely the majority of these couples are female. We can all support our sisters and fellow state workers who have been earning unequal pay by voting NO on April 3rd.

There has been a request to the PAC to donate to Alaskans Together. Alaskans Together recently completed a phone poll throughout the state and discovered that Alaskan's opinions on this issue are running 50/50, and not 70/30 as was the vote back in '98 for the original constitutional amendment.

As William Lucy said at our convention in March 2006, "We are hopefully not in a race to the bottom."

4. The Women's Issues Committee is reviewing its budget needs. We would like to have our budget increased to $5,000.00 per fiscal year to match the Rural Committee's budget appropriation. We have saved money on our teleconferences by hosting all Anchorage participants at ASEA Headquarters.

5. We have been asked about our efforts to raise funds for our committee and awareness of our work. We have decided that we want to create and sell a lapel pin, similar to the new ASEA pin. We have the art and approved and vendor list narrowed to a union maker
in the USA. We need the money to create this. pin. We are asking the ASEA Executive
Board to loan us the manufacturing costs approximately 51,000.00 for no longer than one
year. We will sell the pins, repay the general fund, and have money for the committee.

We hope for your support in these efforts.

In solidarity,
Nadine Lefebvre, Chair
ASEA Women's Issues Committee