In November 2003, VOP’s Organizing Toolbox article was “Reach out and touch your state legislator.” The Toolbox article was a good practical guide to working with the General Assembly. It’s worth rereading. You can find it on the VOP website at www.virginia-organizing.org/articles/reach_out.php, or you can send VOP a self-addressed stamped envelope and request a copy.

But, even though the information on “how to” is available from VOP and from other sources, most Virginians don’t ever meet with their legislators.

Of course, business leaders, policy experts and lobbyists talk to our legislators all the time. But that’s not working out too well. Virginia’s laws still unfairly benefit some wealthy and priviledged people.

Still, most ordinary Virginians apparently are not convinced that meeting with legislators is worthwhile. This Toolbox article tries to answer some of the concerns that those Virginians may feel.

It’s been a while since high school government class.
Who the heck are our legislators anyway?

Every Virginian lives in a Senate District represented by one Senator, and a House District represented by one Delegate. Elections for these positions are held in odd-numbered years. The Senate has 40 members, and the House of Delegates has 100, and together they are known as the General Assembly.

Because the General Assembly only meets for a few months early each year, most General Assembly members have other jobs. Many of them are attorneys. Others have jobs like teacher, mortician, and small business owner, or are retired. They are, in most cases, selected by one of Virginia’s two major political parties to run for their office, so they have close relationships with many politically active local people who belong to their party.

Every Virginia law, including those related to what local governments can do or not do, is decided by Virginia’s state legislature, the General Assembly. All laws must pass the House and the Senate and be signed by the Governor.

If you have access to the Web, you can find out who your legislator is (and lots of information about him or her) at the website http://legis.state.va.us/.

If you don’t have access to the Web, your local Voter Registration office, which is in the phone book and is part of your city or county government, can give you this information.

Why does VOP consider meeting with
General Assembly members to be important?

You probably agree with a VOP belief “that community, economic, social and environmental policy should be developed with the greatest input from the people it is meant to serve.” That seems like common sense. It should just be the way things work in a country called a democracy.

But it doesn’t work — unless ordinary people have the power to participate in making decisions. Without power, decisions are made for us without even seeking our input. That’s not a problem for political science professors. It’s a practical problem that costs each one of us tax dollars and allows unfair situations to continue.

As VOP has worked to make life more fair in Virginia, we have learned from experience that the General Assembly is the center of decision-making power in Virginia. Some examples:

The General Assembly can override local governments. When Arlington County passed a living wage ordinance in 2003, following the example of Alexandria, Father Leonard Tuozzolo, pastor at Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church, praised the decision, saying that now like Alexandria, Arlington would “be able to point to a track record of reason and justice.” But Alexandria’s “track record” didn’t come easy. First, Alexandria’s organized residents and their elected officials had to pass a local ordinance for a living wage. But then they had to work with other groups throughout the state, including the Virginia Organizing Project, to defeat legislation in the General Assembly that would have taken away the power from Alexandria to even pass a living wage ordinance.

The General Assembly can override good business practices. In 1999, American Airlines joined other corporations and made a business decision to provide benefits to the domestic partners of its employees. One employee benefiting was pilot David Charlebois, who signed up his partner for health benefits. In January 2006, Virginia Delegate David Englin reminded his colleagues in the General Assembly that Charlebois was “the copilot of American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon when Al Qaeda tried to kill me and my comrades who were on duty inside the Pentagon at the time.” Showing no respect for American Airlines, let alone 9/11 victim Charlebois, the General Assembly went ahead and proposed the Marshall-Newman amendment to Virginia’s voters. The amendment probably would deny American Airlines the right to offer partner benefits to employees like Charlebois. (In this case, the General Assembly has the power to propose the Amendment — but Virginia’s voters make the final decision.)

The General Assembly can ignore common sense. Until 2003, Virginia was the one and only state that did not tax income from overseas investments. This encouraged Virginians to invest overseas instead of at home. VOP Tax Reform Committee member David North brought this loophole to the attention of his Delegate, Jim Almand, who put in a bill to fix the problem. Though the loophole had been in place for years, once this attention was focused on it, the loophole was quickly repealed, adding $7 million to Virginia’s revenues just in the first year. The General Assembly’s power had kept a bad law in place until a citizen pointed out the problem.

Every time VOP and its chapter members, supporters and allies have a well thought out meeting with a Virginia legislator on strategic issues, we take one more step forward. We get closer to a day when ordinary Virginians will always be heard and taken seriously at Virginia’s General Assembly. We build our power — our power to have a say in those decisions that impact our lives.

Will meeting with my legislator really accomplish anything?

When you meet with your legislator, you will ask her or him to take certain positions. Your legislator may agree, which is obviously a good thing. That’s clearly a win. But what if you are turned down? Is the meeting a waste? Definitely not, if it’s a VOP meeting.

Because VOP and its allies are sharing information across the state, you can help statewide campaign leaders learn where our issues have more and less support, and which points are and are not convincing to the legislator. You can help improve our strategies to make change.

Also, you will build a relationship for the future. Your legislator will know that your requests are part of a statewide process, and that many other legislators are hearing the same requests. Your legislator will see that you are working to get more people there next time.

Will my legislator even listen to us?

Every legislator is different. As with any group of people, some know more than others, and some are nicer than others. Once a legislator is elected, we can’t control how that person acts. But we can control what we do, and make it more likely we will be listened to, by:

• researching the legislator’s beliefs, connections and personality in advance;
• being clear about what we are asking for, how much time we want, and all other details;
• being polite and treating the legislator as we would want to be treated; and,
• anticipating his or her responses and having answers to them already prepared.

And if the legislator doesn’t listen, we can hold him or her accountable in the future, because we had a roomful of witnesses.

Will the legislator know about our issue?

Sometimes we think that because an issue is important to us, our elected official should also be familiar with it. Oscar Cerrito, a young immigrant college student, found at the last General Assembly session that Delegates were making laws about immigration “without knowing what the process of immigration really is.”

Sometimes, on the other hand, we find out that our legislator knows the subject very well, has already made up his or her mind, and gets impatient with long explanations.

But, again, by being strategic and prepared, you can be ready for your legislator’s ignorance or knowledge. Here are some questions you should try to answer before your meeting:

• Has your legislator said anything in public about your issue? If so, that’s the quickest guide to what she or he knows and thinks. Quoting what he or she has said also shows you have done your homework.
• Is your legislator serving on a committee that deals with your issue? If so, he or she certainly knows the legislative and legal background of the issue. But that may be different from understanding the issue’s impact in your community.
• Is your legislator in touch with groups who care about the issue? If so, she or he knows the point of view of those groups — which may not be your point of view.
• Does your legislator have any particular educational or personal background related to the issue? (Some personal information about each legislator is available on the General Assembly website.)
• What have other groups with similar issues experienced when they met with this legislator?

What if I just plain don’t like my legislator?

Meeting with your legislator is a business meeting — for the people’s business. Does it matter whether you like the guy behind the counter at the local fast food restaurant, as long as he isn’t rude and you get your sandwich? The same goes for your legislator.

We see a lot of ads that show the candidates smiling with their spouse, dog, kids or cutest constituents, and so we try to figure out their inner hearts.

Well, of course, every legislator is a human being, and like any one of us, has an amazing personal history. But unless you are planning to have your legislator come to your home and take care of your kids, you only need to know enough to change some of his or her policy positions.

Here are some more interesting questions to think about:

• What kind of power does the legislator have? How long has he or she been in office, and what positions does she or he hold? How has the candidate used that kind of power in the past?
• What power is the legislator seeking? Is the legislator planning for higher office, or for power within a political party?
• What movements or organizations mean the most to the legislator?
• What is the legislator’s track record in working with communities and groups?
• Which promises has the legislator kept in the past?
• Perhaps most important — what power do we have to keep her or him focused on meeting our needs?

And the big question — won’t it be boring or scary?

It can be boring to sit in an audience and listen to a speech. It can be boring to be at a public hearing where you are not allowed to talk. And maybe your high school government class was boring.

It can be scary to stand up alone to ask a question. It can be scary to be put on the spot when you feel you haven’t been prepared.

But a VOP legislative meeting is a planned activity you do with other good folks like yourself. It has a purpose. It has a beginning and an end, and after it’s over we evaluate what happened, and we make sure the information gets used.

And you will be wanted, needed, and welcome by us — whatever your Delegate or Senator thinks.

When VOP’s Williamsburg area chapter was being formed, member Marian Ashby said, “I really think it (a chapter) would give people, especially working class and poor people, an opportunity to get information and speak in a dignified way on the issues that are at the core of our livelihood, such as taxes, wages and housing issues to name a few. In order to do this, we need to continue to bring in new people.”

If you haven’t been part of a VOP legislative meeting yet, you are one of those new people we need.

Your presence is really needed at a legislative meeting this fall. There’s no experience necessary. There are no guarantees either — except that, if you do it as part of VOP’s statewide effort, it will be worth doing. So don’t even wait for us to ask you. Contact your local VOP leadership or organizer and volunteer.