Take Action with the League Now!
With the Washington State Legislative Session starting on Jan 9, 2023, and local city and county governments moving into the new year, there is plenty of action related items to keep us all busy.
LWV Washington Action
LWVWA held its Action Workshop on Dec. 10 --View the link to the 2022 Action Workshop to review most of the sessions (some were not recorded). Click here for session report-outs from attendees.
Legislative Website: Keep up on the progress of legislative action at leg.wa.gov. The legislature’s website that is full of information that you will find helpful. If you are new to this website, you can go to the Legislative Information Center on that site for some helps in navigating that site.
LWVWA Legislative Newsletter: will also provide weekly information on the progress of bills that are on the League Legislative Agenda. The Newsletter will publish a 4 p.m on Sundays throughout the session (until April 24) and will provide you with Action Alerts to send to your legislators and updates on League Legislative Agenda. Topics that LWVWA is following are here. This page has all of the updated 2023 verbiage and links to the issue papers. The individual issue webpages list the bills LWV is supporting and tracks their progress in weekly reports. Keep checking back on the issue(s) of interest to you.
Testifying at the Legislature: While the Legislature will meet in person this year committees will continue to receive testimony through a virtual platform. This is one of the silver linings out of COVID and will be a real boon to those of us here in eastern Washington. There will be instructions on leg.wa.gov as well as in LWVWA’s Action Alerts that release weekly.
Speak up School with a legislative focus was offered by LWVWA to help with your potential testimony. Go the below links for the materials and Recordings.
ALL Materials for Speak Up School - Learn to Testify
Recordings:
Part 1 Why Testify is Important (22 min)
Part 2 Creating Powerful Testimony (41 min)
Part 3 Testifying Effectively (49 min)
ACTviaZoom, is a weekly a information session devoted (mainly) to legislative topics. Things will have changed since Action Workshop!
This is a great way get the background information from League, community and state resources needed to understand the action requests in the weekly Legislative Newsletter. Plus, it's great to be "in the room" with League members from across the state! All sessions are recorded and available for viewing on the League YouTube channel. Register for this fun and informative session.
Lobby Week – LWVWA will hold Lobby Week starting Feb 6, 2023. You can see more detail and register here. A popular feature of this event is lobbying sessions with your own legislators. Once you register, you will get more detail on that piece of the program.
We are truly a grassroots organization...
The League of Women Voters takes action on an issue or advocates for a cause when there is an existing League position that supports the issue or speaks to the cause.
Positions result from a process of study. Any given study, whether it be National, State, or Local, is thorough in its pursuit of facts and details. As the study progresses, a continuing discussion of pros and cons of each situation occurs. Prior to the results of the study being presented to the general membership, study committee members fashion consensus questions that are then addressed by the membership.
Additional discussion, pro and con, takes place as members (not part of the study committee) learn the scope of the study. After the members reach consensus, the board forms positions based on that consensus.
It is the consensus statement -- the statement resulting from the consensus questions -- that becomes a position. Firm action or advocacy can then be taken on the particular issue addressed by the position. Without a position, action/advocacy cannot be taken
