When Communicating with Your Legislator...

DO:

• Be friendly: Contact your legislators on a periodic basis - not only when you want something from him/her. Invite your legislators to visit your schools or perhaps have a meeting or meal with your school board. Make an extra effort to keep in touch throughout the year.
• Be understanding: Walk in your legislators' shoes. Try to understand the pressures they face from competing interests on any particular issue. Realize there are many aspects to any bill or vote of which you may not be aware. Also, if you understand your legislators' goals and political philosophy you can help them understand how they mesh with your schools' needs and goals.
• Be reasonable: Recognize there are legitimate differences of opinion. While you may differ on one piece of legislation, you may agree on others.
• Be realistic: Remember that most controversial legislation cannot win passage without compromise. Don't expect to get everything you want in legislation you want passed, and work to make less objectionable legislation you oppose.
• Be accurate: Make certain you provide your legislators with accurate information about how a bill you support or oppose will affect your school system. If your legislators can count on you for reliable information, you will establish a mutually beneficial relationship.
• Be cooperative: If your legislators make a reasonable request, try to comply. You can help them by supplying needed information accurately and quickly.

DON'T:

• Show disdain for politics: Communicating to legislators that certain bills, campaigns or politics in general are not worthwhile or are dishonest will not build a good relationship.
• Demand: Legislators serve many constituents of which you are one. Avoid demanding they vote in a particular way or produce results on a bill.
• Be an extremist: Politics involves the art of compromise. Don't condemn your legislators as being too far to the left or to the right in general or on an issue.
• Threaten: No one likes to be threatened with personal or political retaliation and it seldom works.

Contacting Legislators

Telephone Calls

Telephone calls are no substitute for face-to-face visits, but they can be effective once your relationship with legislators is established. Remember, your legislators' time is valuable. Identify yourself, your school system, and address the issue. If time permits, try to reach your legislators when they're at home in their districts. If you need to reach them more quickly at the State House, be prepared to leave a detailed message. If the Legislature is meeting at the time of your call, ask the secretary or receptionist to have your message hand delivered by a page.

Representatives: House members are difficult to reach at their individual State House office numbers, and you are likely to be transferred to the House receptionists who will take messages. With few exceptions, House members do not have secretaries. You can call 334/242-7600 to leave messages with the House receptionists. Or, you can call their individual offices at the State House.

Senators: Unlike representatives, senators have secretaries who answer their State House office phones when they are away. They can take more detailed messages and call you back with a response if needed. Senate secretaries are an important link to your senators. You can call senators' offices directly or through the Senate receptionists at 334/242-7800. Or, you can call their individual offices at the State House.

Letters

Writing letters saves time for you and your legislators. It also serves as a permanent record of your position and allows you to explain your position in more detail. It is important, however, that the information you convey be accurate since your letter may be shared with other legislators. Always write to thank your legislators for seeing you, voting as you asked or doing anything else in your interest. Remember to be quick to praise and slow to criticize.

Fax

Fax messages are quick, inexpensive and are considered important. They allow you the detail of a letter and the immediacy of a phone call. Representatives receive fax messages at 334/242-4759. Fax to senators at 334/242-8819. Make sure each fax message is individually addressed to legislators. If possible, call to confirm that it was received. If timing is critical, mark it urgent.

E-Mail

Like fax messages, e-mail is a rapid and inexpensive means of communication. All legislators have access to e-mail while at the State House through a central message system. To e-mail House members, address messages to the member at house3@mindspring.com. Senators receive messages at alsenate@mindspring.com.

Telephone and Writing Tips

• Be brief: Refer to only one bill, package of bills or issue.
• Identify yourself: Make sure legislators and/or the receptionist/secretary know the call or letter is coming from a constituent who lives or represents a school system in his/her district.
• Explain: Tell how the proposed legislation affects your school system and why he/she should support, oppose or change the legislation. Refer to bills by number, if possible, but always tell what it does. The bill number is important, but without an explanation of what the bill does, the number may be meaningless.
• Ask: Don't just tell legislators you support or oppose a bill, ask them to support or oppose it as well. Also ask legislators to let you know their position on the bill.
• Suggest: Tell legislators what specific action you suggest they take (vote against the bill when it comes before them; speak against the bill; amend the bill to remove something objectionable or add something favorable, etc.).
• Secure: Ask for a commitment for a position or action. Once you have a commitment, watch to see that it is met. Thank legislators for standing by their commitments and politely let them know you are aware when they have not.
• Thank: Let your legislators know you appreciate their time and consideration of your views.
• Address: Letters should be sent to home and State House (when in session) office addresses to insure timely delivery. Begin the address with: The Honorable ____________ and Dear Senator/Representative____________ (unless you are on a first-name basis).

Letters sent to the State House should be addressed to:

The Honorable __________________
Alabama Senate/Alabama House of Representatives
Alabama State House
Montgomery, AL 36130

• Copy: Send copies of correspondence with legislators to AASB. It helps us reinforce your position on bills - especially at critical points.

Legislative Glossary

Baseball - A work agenda, usually employed in the Senate, which allows members to bring up bills they wish to pass. Baseball rules, set by the Rules Committee, usually specify that a bill may be considered unless one (or sometimes more) member objects to its consideration. In the event a bill is objected to, it counts as a "strike". Members get three "strikes". If they can't pass a bill in those three opportunities, their turn is over. Turns "at bat" may be determined by the Rules Committee or through a random drawing of district numbers.

BIR - A budget isolation resolution accompanies every bill until the House and Senate have dispensed with the General Fund and Education Trust Fund budgets. Because the Alabama Constitution requires the budgets to take precedence over other legislation, a three-fifths majority of members in each chamber must vote to adopt the BIR for a bill to be considered before the budgets are approved.

Companion Bills - Bills which are identical in content and which are introduced in the House and Senate are called companion bills.

Conference Committee - A committee formed to settle differences between House-passed and Senate-passed versions of a bill when one or both of the chambers disagrees or votes to non-concur with the other chamber's bill. Conference committees usually are comprised of six members - three each from the House and Senate - appointed by each chamber's presiding officer. The compromise reached by the conference committee is called a conference committee report; it must win concurrence of each chamber to win passage.

Consent Calendar - An agenda of non-controversial bills which may be voted up or down. No debate, floor amendments, or substitute bills are allowed. Bills placed on the consent calendar in the House are posted for three legislative days. Unless 11 House members contest placing a posted bill on the consent calendar, it will remain on the calendar to be voted upon on a certain legislative day.

Engrossment - The process of producing a copy of a bill as it is amended by one chamber before sending to the other chamber. An engrossed bill is checked for accuracy and amendments included in the body of the bill. Often bills are forwarded without engrossment.

Enrollment - Once a bill has passed the Legislature, it is typed into final form and signed by both presiding officers before sending it to the governor. This is the enrolled version of the bill.

Filibuster - Extended debate on a bill. Filibusters often are used as delaying tactics to prevent action on a bill or future action on another bill. Filibusters technically can occur only in the Senate, which historically has allowed virtually unlimited debate on a bill. The House imposes time limits on debates, which technically prevents a filibuster.

Introduction - When a bill is first presented in the House it is introduced by one or more sponsors and assigned to a committee by the presiding officer of the House. Under the Senate's new rules, however, bills first presented in that body are assigned to a committee agreed upon by the Lieutenant Governor and the President Pro-Tem. A bill may be (and usually is) introduced in both the House and Senate. The introduction of a bill also is called its first reading.

Regular Session - The annual legislative session which deals with the Education Trust Fund and General Fund budgets as well as any other legislation. Regular sessions begin on the third Tuesday in April of the first year of legislators' terms of office (quadrennium); on the first Tuesday in February of the second and third years; and on the second Tuesday in January of the fourth year.

Second Reading - When a bill is passed by a committee (also called "giving a favorable report") with or without amendments or a substitute and is reported to one of the chambers.

Special Order Calendar - A work agenda offered by each chamber's Rules Committee on most legislative days. A special order calendar may be for one day only or be a continuing special order calendar in effect until the bills contained on it are dispensed with. Special order calendars in the House may specify time limits for debate on bills.

Special Session - A legislative session, called by the governor, to focus on one or more subjects. Special sessions may be called at any time and in an unlimited number.

Substitute - An extensive revision of a bill which may substantially alter its original intent.

A substitute may be offered in committee and then be adopted by the House or Senate. Any member also can offer a floor substitute when a bill is voted on in his/her chamber.

Sunset - Agencies or laws that are set for periodic review and evaluation. A joint legislative sunset committee may recommend continuation, changes or termination of a subject agency or program. Unless the House and Senate vote to continue an agency or program subject to sunset, it automatically is discontinued.