The Floor Champion fights on the congressional floor for the actual legislative change. While the Public Figure operates in the community influencing the opinions of the people, the Floor Champion fights in Congress. We need a Senate that will refuse to confirm pro-choice judges.
The revolutionary war had Floor Champions in every state. Richard Henry Lee served as a Floor Champion in the Virginia House of Commons. He and Patrick Henry played good cop/bad cop as Lee’s calm and eloquent oratories supplemented Henry’s passion and zeal. Henry activated the action via agitation. Lee directed that energy to positive change. Together they were unstoppable.
As for the British abolition movement, the Floor Champion was Lord Grenville . You are probably thinking, “What about William Wilberforce ? I saw an entire movie that depicted him operating as the Floor Champion.” Wilberforce was the Floor Champion in the House of Commons. Wilberforce agitated for change for 30 years but it was Lord Grenville’s eloquent speech before the House of Lords that resulted in a 41 to 20 vote eliminating the slave trade.
President Bush signing the Partial Birth Abortion Ban. There are no women in this photo.
Once Grenville’s abolition bill came before the House of Commons, it passed in a 283 to 16 landslide. Wilberforce provided the energy. Grenville breached the wall of opposition. What the Abolitionist movement needed was an articulate member of the Nobility to back up the movement. Once the aristocracy came onboard the opposition dwindled away.
So far, men have implemented most of the pro-life action and provided much of the energy behind the movement. Men are right and their arguments are good, but this is not enough. We need someone from the House of Lords to pop the bubble. We need to elect female Floor Champions .
If you have any questions or comments, we would love to hear from you. Leave me a comment or send me an email.
What do you think?
If you have any questions or comments, we would love to hear from you. Leave me a comment or send me an email. If you would like to comment on any post in particular here they are:
First, delete this sentence after correcting the typo in the 3rd paragraph of “Wilberforce agitated for change for 3o years” to “…30 years”. 🙂
Be careful on championing voting more women in as a driving force on this issue alone. More of the Right women SHOULD be voted in, but it may hurt their effectiveness on this and certainly many other issues it they can be seen as “tokens” present mostly for the abortion issue. As in the last presidential election, in “breaking the ceiling” for getting the first black and/or woman president, I cautioned people to care about WHO the “first” president was. Voting for the wrong “first” hurts the future candidates in that category. Man OR woman, we need the Right people in place.