FEB. 1 – ONLINE PRESENTATIONS

Wonderful, Mary and Karen and Nancy – thank you!

Mary Williams, our State President, Karen Anderson, our Public Policy director, and Nancy Sapiro, our AAUW WA lobbyist, organized for us a virtual Lobby Day for 138 of our members across the state. Recordings of the meeting will be posted here soon. Also see below for any slide shows.

Questions?  advocacy@aauw-wa.org

THE PRESENTATIONS

• AAUW-WA President Mary Williams and Public Policy Chair, Karen Anderson
• Dr. Laura Sienas, American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, spoke about her horrific experiences as a provider and her support of HB 2561, Pregnancy and Miscarriage Care Act
• Margaret Babayan, Washington State Budget and Policy Center, showed us well researched information to understand new revenue bills and tax credits legislation. View/print slides
• AAUW WA lobbyist Nancy Sapiro brought us up to speed on legislation overall and how to keep current
• Karen Besserman, Emerge WA wa.emergeamerica.org , talked about how much support women need to run for public office and her organization’s effort to fill the gap, as well as other resources that are more non-partisan
• Sandra Distelhorst of AAUW Sno-King (esk-wa.aauw.net/initiatives/public-policy) talked passionately about how to develop information for candidate comparisons based on lawmakers’ positions on our issues.
  Here are the websites she directed us towards:
  https://www.aauw.org/resources/policy/advocacy-toolkit/
  https://www.aauwaction.org/

[Read details in our Legislative Update Reports – on this website under Advocacy – click here…]

The legislature wants us to justify bills on one of three grounds:  COVID; economic recovery; or equity, which they define as racial equity but we have broadened to include gender equity.  We are appending a statement supporting progressive revenue measures because budget is a big issue this year and most of our bills cannot pass without new funding.  We will be making separate recommendations regarding revenue bills as soon as they are developed and introduced in the legislature.

Port Townsend branch met with its area’s legislators including Representative Mike Chapman

CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATORS WHO REPRESENT YOUR BRANCH AREA: Engage in virtual lobbying.

• Identify your legislators and make contact with them or their legislative aide early.  You will need to provide them with information about AAUW and arrange for meetings with them.  We will be providing advice on this process.
• Plan talking points for our bills.