Taxes-Constituent Correspondence, 1989-1990

The position papers were written by the legislative assistant responsible for a particular subject. These papers were routed through the legislative staff, Congressman Fawell, and the district office. They were then finalized by Congressman Fawell, his Chief of Staff (Alan Mertz) and the Legislative Director. The Position Paper Files consist of multiple drafts, including final versions, of form letters sent to constituents usually in response to a call or letter to Congressman Fawell on particular subjects. Subjects included: Agriculture (dairy, farm subsidies), Abortion (access to clinics, late term abortion ban, Hyde Amendment, foreign, healthcare), Banking, Conservation (Department of the Interior, recycling, museums, historical and natural park designations and appropriations, Endangered Species Act); Environment (Clean Air Act), Gun Control, Immigration, Labor (OSHA, unions, pensions, small businesses), Medicare, Social Security, Transportation, and Veterans. The files arrived in three general date runs, 1985-1990; 1990-1993; and 1995-1998. Upon evaluation, the 1985-1990 run of materials appeared to be fairly complete, including drafts stapled to or following the final version. The 1990-1993 materials were quite incomplete, including very little other than the rough drafts circulated through the offices. Some files include original worksheets that were circulated between the Legislative Director, Legislative Assistant, Administrative Assistant, and HWF, especially in 1993. These drafts appeared to be subjects for which Kristin Jacobson was the Legislative Assistant. Presumably, with the use of a word processing program, when a position paper was updated, it was saved over the old position paper. The dates in the 1995-1998 records are misleading, since the date was automatically updated by the word processing program when the letter was printed. In a few identifiable cases, the subject of the letter is obviously from a time prior to that indicated on the letter. The date of any material from 1993-1998 is, thus, questionable. An effort has been made to date the file folders to reflect the appropriate dates. Many materials in the final fun do not have a date indicated, and therefore, the dates can only be inferred from the information in the letter. A series of letters that are not organized by topic were found and remain in a separate folder titled "Student Letters." The topics of these letters received from grade school through high school students vary widely. This file reflects how the office dealt with students in a different fashion than that of voting constituents. Constituent Correspondence has been separated into identifiable folders usually according to topic. In this series, the constituent correspondence does not include the letter sent to the office by the constituent but does include examples of position papers sent by the office. Also, some of the files reflect correspondence other than that from constituents. For example, some contain correspondence from Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and Illinois Governor Jim Edgar. No original signatures are found in these files, except, on occasion, Congressman Fawell's. Sometimes copies of articles and/or joint letters were included, but much more often an indication is made in the letter that some information was to be enclosed with the letter, but this information was not available within this series of files. These files were received from the Washington, D. C. office. The files were checked for duplicates and as complete a set as possible was assembled. The 1985-1990 run of original edits were missing from folders T through W.