What do you do when there are a lot of bad republican bills moving through your state’s legislature?
These republican and white evangelical christian nationalist bills include:
- Attacking immigrants
- Loosening gun laws
- Targeting the LGBTQ+ community
- The environment
- Abortion bans
These are some of the heinous activities republican politicians are up to. Taking away your rights.
Here are some steps you can do to get more involved in your state legislature.
Find Your State Representatives
First, know who your state representative and state senator is. A lot of folks know who represents them in Congress, but not necessarily in their state.
A google search using something like the phrase below should help you find your state’s official .gov website where you can enter your address.
For example, here’s a search phrase for Nebraska: nebraska state representatives by zip code
When you get the search results, skip any “Sponsored” results and look for an official .gov website for your state.
Once you find your representative(s), put them in your phone as a contact. Make sure you add their phone number, email address, website, and any social media accounts they’re active on. The goal here is to be able to contact them and their staff quickly and easily. These are the folks you should be in constant contact with and hold accountable.
Track Bills
At your state’s .gov website, you should be to track bills. Look for a bill number search or even a keyword search to search for a bill. There’s a lot of information on these sites so it might take a bit of time to get familiar with how they work.
Another way to search for your state’s bills is using Google Alerts. If I go to google.com/alerts and use my state of Nebraska for example, I can search for the phrase: nebraska legislature abortion. That phrase will return search results of the latest news and bills that I can read more about. Google Alerts also allows you to subscribe to those alerts and receive emails on them.
Contact Committees
As bills are moving through the process, they get agendas to different committees. You can contact those committee members and encourage them to vote yes or no on different bills you care about.
There are also a lot of amazing advocacy organizations in your state to help you stay involved with the bills and topics you’re interested in. A Google search like <your state> abortion rights groups will result in such groups that you can reach out to.
Also, if you can testify against the bills you care about, you should. Use your social media networks to raise awareness. All of this makes a difference in helping to stop these policies or at the very least warning people about how dangerous and bad these bills are.
Here are some more tasks you can do to stay informed.