As a newly appointed Senator, I really felt it was important to provide as many opportunities as possible for people to get to know me. So, about a month ago, we launched Conversations With Kirsten, a website that gives me the opportunity to respond to your questions directly and I've been thrilled with the response. So far, we've received hundreds of questions at the website, via e-mail and in the comment threads here at DailyKos.
Today we posted several more video responses at the site, a few of which I'd like to share with you here. Below you'll find three of the questions I was asked, followed by my video response to each as well as a little update. Also, I'll be sticking around in the comments to answer some more of your questions, so I hope you'll join me.
Update [2009-6-3 13:39:35 by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand]:This is Todd, just wanted to address the trigger issue, which I'm sorry the Senator didn't get to respond to during the chat. She is opposed to the trigger and believes the public option has in fact already been triggered and must be a part of any healthcare reform passed this year.
Q: "I'm 100% pro-choice and I heard you weren't and I wanted to ask if that was true. Are you pro-choice?" - Kathy, via e-mail
Yes, Kathy, I'm absolutely pro-choice. In fact I'm honored to have received early endorsements from both NARAL Pro-Choice NY and EMILY's List.
Q: "I know you've worked on investigating the causes of autism, but what can we do to treat those who already have it?" - Robin, via e-mail
This really is a very important issue for me and in fact yesterday I laid out my 3-point plan for addressing autism. My plan includes mandating insurance plans to cover autism, making sure that military families with autistic children get quality coverage and increasing funding for research through the recovery act's NIH funding. You can find out more here.
Q: "I love your work in the House towards increasing government transparency, how can we push that forward in the Senate?" - Ailia, via e-mail
As a member of the House and now as Senator, I'm proud that we put my daily schedule, my appropriations requests and all of my financial disclosure documents online, all of which you can find at my Senate website.
Ultimately, Conversations With Kirsten is just one way in which I'd like to engage in a dialogue with the online community. In the comments of every diary I've posted here, I've received one question time and time again: when are you going to stick around and respond to our questions in the comments? This morning, that's precisely what I'd like to do.
So ask away. I have about a half hour and I look forward to hearing what you have to say.