FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, January 17, 1995
Contact:  Mike Russell
          804-424-2630

     Christian Coalition for Balanced Budget Amendment

     Satellite TV Show Downlinks Strategy to Grassroots

As the House of Representatives prepares to take up the Balanced
Budget Amendment next week, the nation's leading pro-family
organization has launched a major grassroots campaign in support
of its passage.

The campaign merges old-fashioned shoe-leather politics with the
new technologies of the information highway:  satellite
television, computerized bulletin boards and highspeed fax
machines.  Tonight, the Coalition will broadcast the satellite
television program to an estimated 100 downlink locations
nationwide, from Pennsylvania to California.

Thousands of grassroots volunteers gathered at the downlink
centers will receive marching orders and strategy from Coalition
leaders.  Guests include Representative Joe Barton (R-TX), chief
sponsor of the Balanced Budget measure, and Representative John
Boehner (R-OH), the chief strategist for working with outside
groups on passage of the Contract with America.  Viewers will be
able to talk to Representatives Barton and Boehner by calling,
faxing, or "thumbtacking" questions to a special CompuServe
bulletin board.

On Wednesday, January 18, all 50 Christian Coalition state leaders
will arrive in Washington to personally lobby wavering members of
Congress on the Balanced Budget Amendment.  They are scheduled to
meet with speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate majority leader Bob
Dole on Wednesday.

"We are combining grassroots politics with modern technology for
the most sophisticated lobbying effort in our history," says Ralph
Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition.  "This is
about making the federal government live by the same rules as
middle class working families.  They have to balance their
checkbooks every month.  They want a government that does the
same."

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