Last night the 24-judge 9th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals made the
ruled not to overturn the decision of the 3-judge panel’s ruling last
June.  That ruling stated that a daily classroom flag salute including
the phrase “One nation, under God,” violates the Constitution’s ban
against official religion.  As a result of this ruling, On March 10, 2003 –
9.6 million children in the states of Alaska, Arizona, California,
Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, will no longer
be allowed to say the Pledge of Allegiance in the public schools.

I am writing an email to circulate telling people about this decision
and asking them to contact their US Representatives to give their
opinions.  In my email, I want to be able to provide a hyperlink to a
Website where people can easily and accurately determine their US
Congressman and his contact information, along with the contact
information for their two US Senators.  (I used to use "Contacting the
Congress" http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/  but this site is down)
We only have until March 10 to get this court action blocked.  Can you
help me find a website, something other than Congress Merge which is
confusing,difficult to use and often inacurate or not working
correctly.

I would also like to provide contact information (including general
email) for each of the US District Court Of Appeals and the Contact
information for the US Supreme Court (including general email).  Can
you help me?

One more thing.  I have tried to contact Juan who does the Contacting
the Congress site to see when it will really be back up.  The email
associated with that site does not seem to be working.  Any ideas?

I know that this is a lot for a question. . I am sorry.

Dear schmooz,

I have found a number of ressources that might fulfill your needs.
Simple choose the options you like best:

-- 1. Contact Information for Congressmen and Senators --

This is the Senate's directory of Senators, sorted by States, with
contact information for all Members of Senate:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?OrderBy=state&Sort=ASC

This very handy House of Representatives' directory contains direct
links to the official Congressmen's websites. Those websites always
contain contact information, so it should be what you need. To find
out one's Congressman, only the Zip Code + Extension Code and the name
of the State are needed:
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.htm

For easily and accurately determining the names of Congressmen, I also
recommend using the Member Directory, provided on the House of
Representative Office of the Clerk's website:
http://0-clerk.house.gov.library.csuhayward.edu/members/
By choosing the State of residence in the corresponding drop-down
menu, all Congressment representing that State in Congress are listed,
sorted by Districts. I assume that the overwhelming majority of US
citizens know what Congressional District they live in, so this should
do perfectly.
In the list of Representatives displayed, the names of the Honrable
Members of Congress can be clicked. This will bring up detailed
contact information for each of them.

Additionally, this directory on the House of Representatives' website
might prove useful:
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
By simply entering the state and the postal Zip Code + Extension Code
of the place of residence, the proper Congressman and Congressional
District are determined. So even those who do not know the number of
the District they live in can get information here quickly.

Finally, the "Congressional Email Directory" (not an official
website!) contains e-mail addresses for both all those Members of
Congress and Senators who use e-mail for communication:
http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email.html
Congressional Email Directory, by webslingerZ and Jeffrey Hoffman

However, the most simple way to contact one's Congressman or Senator
is, provided one knows his/her name, writing a letter addressed like
this:

-Senators-

"Your Senator's Name"
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

-Congressmen-

Your Representative's Name
United States House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

-- 2. Contact Information for the US Supreme Court --

Supreme Court of the United States
U.S. Supreme Court Building
Washington, D.C. 20543
Phone: (202) 479-3000
Website: http://www.supremecourtus.gov
Please note: The Supreme Court does not accept corresponcence with
private individuals  via e-mail.

-- 3. Contact Information for the District Courts of Appeals --

1st Circuit (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Puerto Rico, Rhode
Island):

United States Court of Appeals
John Joseph Moakley  U.S. Courthouse 
1 Courthouse Way 
Boston, Massachusetts 02210 
Phone: (617) 748-9057
E-Mail: AskTheClerk@ca1.uscourts.gov
Website: http://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/

2nd Circuit (Conncecticut, New York, Vermont):

United States Court of Appeals
Marshall U.S. Courthouse
40 Foley Square
New York, NY 10007
Phone: (212) 857-8500
E-Mail: Webmaster@ca2.uscourts.gov
Website: http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/

3rd Circuit (Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virgin Islands):

United States Court of Appeals
U.S. Courthouse
601 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106-1790
Phone: (215) 597-2995
Website: http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/

4th Circuit (Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and
West Virginia):

United States Court of Appeals
Lewis F. Powell, Jr. U.S. Courthouse
1100 East Main Street, Suite 501
Richmond, VA 23219-3517
Phone: (804) 916-2700
Website: http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/

5th Circuit (Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas):

United States Court of Appeals
Lewis F. Powell, Jr. U.S. Courthouse
600 Camp Street New Orleans, LA 70130
Phone: (504) 310-7700
Website: http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/

6th Circuit (Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee):

United States Court of Appeals
Potter Stewart U.S. Courthouse 
100 E. Fifth Street 
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202-3988 
Phone: (513) 564-7000 
Website: http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/

7th Circuit (Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin):

United States Court of Appeals
Room 2722
219 S. Dearborn Street
Chicago, IL 60604
Phone: (312) 435-5850
Website: http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/

8th Circuit (Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North
Dakota, and South Dakota):

United States Court of Appeals
Thomas F. Eagleton Courthouse
Room 24.329
111 South 10th Street
St. Louis, MO 63102
Phone: (314) 244-2400
Website: http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/index.html

9th Circuit (Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho,
Montana, Nevada, Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, Washington):

United States Court of Appeals
95 Seventh Street
San Francisco, CA 94103-1518
Phone: (415) 556-9800
Website: http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/

10th Circuit (Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and
Wyoming):

United States Court of Appeals
Byron White U.S. Courthouse
1823 Stout Street
Denver, CO 80257
Phone: (303) 844-3157
Website: http://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/

11th Circuit (Alabama, Florida, and Georgia):

United States Court of Appeals
Elbert P. Tuttle U.S. Court of Appeals Building
56 Forsyth Street, NW
Atlanta, GA 30303
Phone: (404) 335-6100
Website: http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/

District of Columbia Circuit:

United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse
333 Constitution Avenue, NW 
Washington, DC 20001-2866
Phone: (202) 216-7000
E-Mail: Information@cadc.uscourts.gov
Website: http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/

Federal Circuit:

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
717 Madison Pl., NW
Washington, DC 20439
Phone: (202) 633-6550
Website: http://www.fedcir.gov/

That is the best information I can provide you. Unfortunately, I have
not been able to find anything concerning Juan Cabanela of "Contacting
the Congress".

Additional source used:

U.S. Courts: The Federal Judiciary
http://www.uscourts.gov/

Search terms used:
"members of congress"
://www.google.de/search?q=%22members+of+congress%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=de&meta=
congressmen directory
://www.google.de/search?q=congressmen+directory&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=de&meta=
"us district courts of appeals"
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&q=%22us+district+courts+of+appeals%22&btnG=Google-Suche&meta=

Hope this proves useful for you!
Best regards,
Scriptor

---

Clarification of Answer by scriptor-ga on 01 Mar 2003 16:03 PST

A brief note: As you might have noticed, the court list does not show
the District Courts of Appeals of the various states, but rather the
Circuit Courts of Appeals. This is because I have, in hours of
searching, not been able to locate a directory of District Courts of
Appeals. So I decided that giving you the addresses of the next-level
Courts of Appeals is better than omitting this part completely.

Regards,
Scriptor

---

Request for Answer Clarification by schmooz-ga on 02 Mar 2003 09:37 PST

Scriptor - My error and sorry it put you to so much work.  It is most
certainly "Circuit" not "District" and I will be much more careful in
the future.

Tor-Ga  Thank you so very much for that wonderful site
http://congress.org/congressorg/home/  It is in the email and on the
top of my favorites list.

Journalist-ga  The words "Under God" is in the flag salute.  What do
think would happen if schools took it upon themselves to edit the flag
salute???  How about this. . .I pledge alliegence to the flag of the.
.for which it stands. .
What about the school who decides to edit out the words "United States
of America"?????

Sillkitty - the last words of your comment show that you live up to
your name.  No, most certainly - if the words "under God" were removed
from the flag salute, eveyone would not be happy. .in fact, the
majority of Americans would be most unhappy.  Silly - we are going to
war in a few days.  For me, I could use a lot more of "God" in these
sad days and times.  I certainly don't want to be carving him off the
flag salute.

---

Clarification of Answer by scriptor-ga on 02 Mar 2003 10:22 PST

Dear schmooz,

No need for apologies at all. It was, as always, a pleasure to answer
your question.

Best regards,
Scriptor

Thank you and all those who made comments!!!!!  You all provided me
with some wonderful resources.

Also take a look at this site:  

http://capitoladvantage.com/h2/

Scriptor's excellent answer includes all the information you can find
here, but I'm just partial to how nicely this web site presents the
information. It also allows a visitor to enter their zipcode and see
their local representative's e-mail addresses, and helps users to
write a letter to them.  (I believe you can also copy some HTML code
to a put a box on your own site for people to enter-in their zip codes
directly).

My mistake, that address is where you find the box to put on your own
site.  This site contains the letter-writing tools:
http://congress.org/congressorg/home/

Does the upheld ruling say the pledge *cannot be said at all* or
simply cannot include "under God"?

Re scriptor-ga's clarification:

I assume that schmooz-ga meant each "Circuit Court of Appeals", not
"District Court of Appeals".  The web site of the federal judiciary
shows that there are "U.S. Courts of Appeals" and "U.S. District
Courts", but no "U.S. District Courts of Appeals".

The Federal Judiciary
http://www.uscourts.gov/

I think that scriptor-ga gave the correct information, about the U.S.
Courts of Appeals.

schmooz,

An alternative solution is for you to get everyone to petition their
legislators to have the Pledge of Allegiance returned to its original,
pre-1954 form. Then 9.6 million children in the states of Alaska,
Arizona, California,
Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, will be allowed
to say the Pledge of Allegiance in the public schools, and everyone
will be happy.

schmooz,

Oh, so what you are really saying is not how important it is for
schoolchildren to be able to say the Pledge of Allegiance, but how
important it is for schools to be able to force religion on the
children.

In that case, rather than worry about trying to overthrow this court
decision, you should worry about trying to overthrow the Constitution,
since that's where the law requiring separation of Church and State
was originally written.

How fortunate it is for all of us that you know far better how to
legislate religious freedom for us than our Founding Fathers did.