State Legislative Committee Instructions
 

• This is your state group.
   

• You goal is to get both Republican and Democrat legislators in both the House and the Senate, to write bills for you, get legislators from both parties to co-sponsor the bill and the rest to support it. One of our legislators wrote a bill that encompassed most of our Proposed Legislative Changes. Another said it was a better strategy to write one bill for each issue as it was easier to explain on concept at a time. You might discuss both with your legislator.
   

• Convincing your legislators is a team sport. If you are the only one writing to your legislators, it is unlikely that you will be successful changing the laws. Yes, start contacting you legislators right away but also work to build the HRLNG legislative committee in your state. Keep searching for and organizing more people that will contact legislators. We at HRLNG will be helping you. Welcome others that want to join you, especially those who are willing to be leaders. This is not an EGO contest. None of us can achieve this on our own.
   

• When you write a letter, you can post it on the main feed of the HRLNG Facebook page and also in the State Community Chat group asking others to cut and paste and send to their legislators and the committee legislators and include the email addresses. The easier you make it for the others the more likely they are to send the emails.
   

• Contact your local legislators, the ones in your district. Generally email them first with brief explanation of what you want to talk about. Ask for a meeting. They will likely ignore you or send you a form letter.
   

• If you read the HRLNG Proposed Legislation it outlines the problems and solutions. You can use it to summarize the problems but at this point just tell them we have solutions.
   

• You should also talk very briefly about how the bad HOA laws have damaged you and others you know but keep it very brief. Don’t try to tell them all the details of your case. Let them know this effects 30-50% of the people in the State.
   

• Legislators want you to vote for them but do as little actual work as possible. Most of them have multiple jobs and the legislature is just a part time job for them. Many states have session only in the winter some don’t have session every year. Many of the legislators only want to work during session but then are too busy to talk to you. You need to find out how you state operates. Ask others in the group. Don’t let them push you off to the next session. Keep convincing them to write the bills now so they are perfected by the time the next session rolls around.
   

• They don’t like to read so keep anything you send them short. They like to read long paragraphs less than they like to read short paragraphs. They like to read paragraphs less than they like to read bullet point. So use bullet points when possible.
   

• When they do give you an appointment, they will likely offer you 15 minutes. Explain that there are many, many problems with the HOA laws and you want to explain the solutions also, and ask for an hour. They may not give it to you but often they do. It is best to meet them personally but if that is not a reasonable situation for you, it is almost as good to meet over Zoom. Most of the legislators have access to Zoom and they can set it up. I am happy to go to any legislator meetings with you over Zoom. You can be there in person, I can be there on Zoom.
   

• 3 days later phone and ask for appointment. 3 days later email again, 3 days later phone again, etc. Keep going until you get an appointment.
   

• When you call if you get to talk to their staff, explain to the staff the horrors of HOAs and the importance of changing the laws. Get them on your side, they can be very helpful.
   

• Also contact the legislators of the committees that the bills would go through. Same process, just keep contacting them until you get an appointment.
   

• Same for the Governor as he must sign off on all the bills and can also ask the legislature to write the bills.
   

• Once you get an appointment send them the proposed legislation. In that email ask them to read it before the meeting so that you can discuss it. They most likely won’t, so be prepared either way.
   

• Have what you want to say in the meeting written out in bullet points like this document or in a list so that you don’t forget anything you wanted to say.
   

• Always ask if they can help you to get other legislators, including the other chamber and the other political side (Republican,Democrat) to write companion bills. Ask who and when. Ask them what else you can do to help them get the bills past.
   

• Before the meeting ends always ask them if they would write bills for the proposed legislation, and when you can meet with them next. Always discuss next steps.
   

• You goal is to get them to write bills that include the proposed legislation. You need someone to write the bills in both the house and the senate and ideally both Republicans and Democrats. As this is not a partisan issue, you may be able to get them to have multiple co-sponsors for the bill vs separate bills from Rs and Ds.
   

• Get as many other people from your state as possible to also write to their district legislators and also to the committee legislators asking for the same.
   

• Work as a team through HRLNG as you can accomplish a lot more as a team and it helps keep people motivated. The legislators ALL tell us we need a lot of people calling in and writing into their legislators and the committee.
   

• If you talk to other members, and they are uncomfortable writing to the legislators, there are a lot of other ways they can help. They can join any of our other committee to help support your efforts. Get them to Patrick Johansen or Carolyn Wefsenmoe to talk to them about how they can help.
   

• You will be emailing and if you are willing, phoning your legislators to talk to them about the Proposed Legislation.  It is even better if you can visit them in person