You’ve heard about citizen statesmen and citizen journalists, but did you know there are citizen lobbyists?
The political events of the last few years have been gradually convincing many citizens that they should begin or increase their involvement in the political process.
However, that is easier said than done. For starters, it is virtually impossible for ordinary citizens to get the attention of federal officials. That leaves the state legislature as the highest level of government at which common folks can still interact with their elected officials.
But even at the state level, there are obstacles that must be overcome in order to participate in the three stages of citizen involvement, which are, a) being alerted as to what legislation is being considered, b) having the tools and the knowledge necessary to contact legislators effectively, and c) knowing what actions were taken by legislators.
All three stages will be addressed in more detail momentarily, but first, let’s look a what some folks are doing to overcome these obstacles.
A group of concerned citizens have formed the AZ Rapid Response Team (AZRRT), and have developed two very useful tools. One is our Facebook page, and the other is our website, azpeopleslobbyist.com. Combined, these two tools are all that is needed for citizens to exercise their First Amendment rights regarding legislative activity.
Here is how the process works:
● Upcoming Activity Alerts. On a weekly basis, we post on our FB page, https://www.facebook.com/AZRRT/ information about what legislative bills are coming up for consideration during the week. We track only bills that are important and/or controversial enough to merit our attention, but we listen to suggestions from the general public regarding what bills to track.
● Contacting Legislators. This is the activity that makes our website, https://azpeopleslobbyist.com/ extremely handy. Of the array of tools available at this site, two really stand out.
One is a method of contacting all legislators via e-mail with just a few keystrokes. The other is the ability to provide testimony and render opinions at committee hearings remotely, without having to attend the hearing in person.
● How They Voted. On a weekly basis, we update our website with the results of votes taken and how legislators voted. This is good ongoing information for the purpose of encouraging legislators to vote the right way.
It is vital information at election time, to check if the campaign rhetoric matches or contradicts the legislator’s voting record.
Our website, azpeopleslobbyist.com does a lot more. For example, there are links to various agencies and services, articles on how legislative bills are created, information about how to create effective e-mails, instructions on how to use the Request to Speak program, etc. Make sure you visit our website soon and often.