MONDAY,  JANUARY 22 – Online via Zoom

The Washington Legislature opened its short session on Monday, January 8, and we  tracked bills that met our AAUW-WA priorities.

Bills that we supported.
Talking Points for communicating with your legislators.

Lobby Day Presenters

• • AAUW-WA Legislative Consultant Nancy Sapiro, overview of our bills and what is happening in Oplympia
  • Tammie Schrader, regional computer science coordinator for NWESD, speaking on media literacy and AI
  • Tristan Eddy and Hailey Gray, Justice for Girls Coalition, talking about “at risk” girls and what programs and policies support their success. View the JFGC slides. Use this form to get involved with JFGC.
  • Robin Lucas, grassroots organizer, and Meghan Kissell, national AAUW Public Policy Director
  • AAUW-WA Public Policy Team, review of bills and priorities

View the recording (Includes a transcript of Chat) using Passcode: s8B0yez.

Weekly legislative updates were published in “This Week In Olympia” for the 2024 legislative session and you can read them online.

Questions? Contact publicpolicy@aauw-wa.org

ARCHIVE

Lobby Day 2023

Branch talks with Representative Chapman 2023

Follow the LEGISLATIVE UPDATE REPORTS FOR 2023 –>

Click for 2023 Legislative tracking –>

Monday January 30, 2023, with Lobby Week Monday January 30 through February 3. The theme for Lobby Day: Legislation and Gender Equity.

AAUW-WA Public Policy: Nancy Sapiro
Sex, gender and Engineering: Harassment at Work and at Home Professor Denise Wilson, University of Washington, College of Engineering & Professor Jennifer VanAntwerp, Calvin University
Apprenticeship Programs in Washington State Kelly Jenkins-Pultz, Department of Labor, District 9, Women’s Bureau
Broadband access and digital literacy in Washington State | Digital Equity Sharonne Navas, Equity in Education Coalition.  Cathy MacCaul, AARP Advocacy Director

Our Keynote Speakers were Professors and Authors Denise Wilson of the University of Washington School of Engineering and Jennifer VanAntwerp of Calvin University. They co-authored “Sex, Gender, and Engineering: Harassment at Work and in School” which will be used as a textbook in the Spring of 2023. You can read more on the UW webpage.

Attendees heard what undergraduates will be taught at UW and the importance of laws we pass to ensure diversity, equity and inclusion courses are taught in schools, AND that sex and gender equity is included. DEI is a required course in higher education in Washington state thanks to a recent law passed, but the law doesn’t explicitly call out sex and gender. Denise’s book and course will ensure sex and gender equity are included in at least one UW Department!

Lobby Day featured a leading expert in broadband access. Something we all need to lean more about. Both the state and national policy teams agree that access to internet is critical in this day and age. It’s linked to education, healthcare, economic security, voting access, and more. National approved our state adding Broadband as a Public Policy Priority (PPP) [read more…] Lobby Day is a great opportunity for us to learn more about why this is an important women’s issue.

TALKING POINTS WITH LEGISLATORS – Lobby Day will also include a panel of AAUW-WA policy advocates who will talk about the areas we will support for 2023. Review talking points that branch public policy teams can follow when meeting with their legislators…

Contact the Public Policy Committee pubicpolicy@aauw-wa.org for details or your local AAUW WA branch.

Lobby Day 2022 archive videos and presentations…

For a review of the 2022 legislative season, read full reports at our web page…

Hi – Lobby Day was a success with over a hundred participants from 23 branches and several “guests”.  The panel was a nice addition and made the Zoom meeting feel like an in-the-room AAUW conversation. We have the videos of each speaker/session if you missed out. See all LINK to YOUTUBE —>

Monday January 24, 2022

8:30 am – Opening
12:30 – Closing

• Leah Rutman, ACLU – WA
• Charlene Krise, Executive Director, Squaxin Island Museum Library and Research Center
• Alissa Muller, Director of Mastery-based Learning, Washington State Board of Education (SBE), talk about New Pathways in Education – click to read more…
• Nancy Sapiro, AAUW Lobbyist
• Public Policy Panel

Preview of two of the bills featured on Lobby Day
Keep our Care Act SB5688, sponsored by Senators Randall-D and Rolfes-D. The companion bill HB1809 is sponsored by Representatives Simmons-D and Berry-D. This bill address hospital and other health system entities mergers and the impact on access to care, increased community costs and decreased quality of care. Read the Keep Our Care Act coalition one-pager.

MMIW/P HB1571 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women concerning protections and services for indigenous persons who are missing, murdered, or survivors of human trafficking. Sponsored by Representatives Mosbrucker-R, Dye-R, and 21 other legislators. This is a strong bipartisan bill introduced at the end of the 2021 session. Washington State Patrol released a report in 2019 on missing and murdered native women. The United Indian Health Institute (Seattle) released their own counter report We Demand More. Governor Inslee appointed a Washington State Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force headed by the Attorney General.

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.

Ellen Dubois, professor emeritus of history at UCLA, has agreed to conduct a Zoom meeting with AAUW-WA members on Monday, Nov. 2, 2020, at 1:00 pm.

She will focus on her recent book, Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote. An eminent women’s historian, Dubois has published several books on woman suffrage over her long career, culminating in this broadly inclusive analysis of the long history of the struggle for all women to obtain this basic right of citizenship.

You should read the book beforehand to benefit fully from this opportunity. It is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookseller near you.

Those who want to know more about the history of this struggle can do no better than to start with Suffrage, which has received very positive reviews. The Guardian, for example, wrote that “Ellen Carol DuBois has written a comprehensive history that deftly tackles intricate political complexities and conflicts and still somehow reads with nail-biting suspense.” [click here to read full text…]

Kirkus Reviews called it an “authoritative, brisk, and sharply drawn history.” [click here to read full text…

If you are interested in participating, or would like more information, please contact Karen Anderson at advocacy@aauw-wa.org .