ACTION PLAYBOOK:
Meet With Your State Legislator
-
Urge your state legislator to act on a climate policy issue.
-
Start with a speed training
Decide who to meet with
Request the meeting
Prepare for the meeting
Report back
✏️ Note: Throughout this action, you may want to have a drafting/note-taking space ready alongside the playbook.
1. Start with a speed training
Constituent meetings with elected officials can be intimidating at first, but they don’t have to be! The more you know about what to expect on a video call with state legislators or their staff, the easier you’ll breeze through your first meeting.
You and those you recruit to join you do not require any prior experience, and someone on Climate Changemakers staff will fully equip you to go in prepared. The first step in that preparation is completing the constituent meeting training linked below. Please complete the training if this will be your first meeting with Climate Changemakers, even if you’ve participated in constituent meetings with other organizations.
Note that this training was designed for meeting with congressional staff, which can be a more formal experience than meeting with state legislators (depending on the state). However, it’s still useful for state-level constituent meetings—at worst, you’ll be over-prepared!
2. Choose a state legislator to meet with & find their contact info
Decide which state legislator you’d like to meet with about the featured policy priority (or if you’d like to choose a different climate solution, browse our state Issue Briefings). If you’re not familiar with your state legislators, start here.
To find your state legislators and their contact information, click here and enter your home address.
Choose “State Officials” and expand the results. Locate one of your state senator(s) or state representatives (also called state assembly member or delegate—the names differ by state).
You’ll find all the necessary contact information nested under each elected official’s name.
3. Call or email to request a meeting
Next, call the local number you found in the previous step to request the meeting. If you’re feeling nervous, don’t worry! You won’t have to go to the meeting alone if you don’t want to—you can bring a friend or be accompanied by someone from Climate Changemakers staff.
State your name, identify yourself as a constituent, and ask to schedule a meeting on your chosen topic. You should also specify whether you would like to meet in person or on a video call. The staff member may schedule the meeting with you on the spot, or they may ask for your email address to send a meeting request form.
If it’s after hours, you can leave a voicemail or request a meeting via email. Using the email address you found in the first step, draft a short request. You don’t need to start making your policy arguments in the request email—save them for the meeting! It’s helpful to float some dates you know you are available to meet, but know that you may need to be flexible depending on how high-profile your state legislator is.
4. Start preparing
Decide whether you want to do the meeting solo, with friends, or with Climate Changemakers staff. Meetings with state legislators can range from formal to a casual coffee chat, depending on the state. If you’d like someone from Climate Changemakers to accompany you on a Zoom call, please reach out to advocacy@climatechangemakers.org or a staff member in Slack.
Meetings are more fun with friends! Feel free to invite others who live in your state legislator’s district to join you in the meeting—just try to limit the number to 5 or fewer constituents. We suggest posting in your regional channel in Slack to find others nearby.
Start preparing an outline. Whether or not your meeting is confirmed, you can start planning what you want to talk about with your state legislator. Below are some tips for crafting an effective meeting outline and a list of resources to help boost your argument.
Get tips from other changemakers by joining the #action-constituent-meetings channel in Slack.
-
Start with introductions
Thank them for any prior support for climate action
Make a clear request (you can use the Clear Policy Ask from our issue briefings)
Try to add a bill number to your policy ask if possible. Use the NCEL database (sometimes the map takes a moment to load) to help you search for existing proposed legislation in your state. A simple Google search, or using your state legislature’s website, can also work!
In some cases, a bill simply won’t exist yet for the policy you’re advocating for. In such cases, your direct ask becomes, “I’d like for you to introduce a bill that does X”!
Back up your request with 3 things:
1. A factual argument for why it’s important.
2. Your own personal story about why you care as a constituent.
3. Evidence that it matters to the people in your district. This can include polling or area-specific climate/economic impacts. Use the links below to find great evidence that works for you!
Let them respond to your points.
Try to leave the meeting with a commitment: to introduce a bill, cosponsor a bill, talk to a colleague about moving it forward, making a public statement, etc.
Ask if there’s any way you can help them be a better champion for climate issues.
Express interest in staying in touch on climate issues.
Helpful resources for locally relevant info
NOAA State Climate Summaries: An amazing resource that not only provides state-specific climate impact data but also narratives and key messages that can be integrated into your outreach.
Climate Costs 2040: For coastal districts, calculate how much taxpayers will be on the hook for building seawalls alone.
Yale Climate Opinion Maps: Use the drop-down menu to sort by survey question and the buttons on the left side of the map to see congressional districts. Pay particular attention to the questions “Worried about global warming” and “Congress should do more to address global warming,” and then try to choose a question relevant to the issue you’re advocating for.
Data for Progress: View district- and state-level data on “Support for congressional climate action.” (Make sure it is selected from the drop-down menu on the bottom).
Climate Opportunity Map: Shows projected job creation and cost savings by congressional district.
Key stakeholders (Google search): See if you can generate a list of key stakeholders who support this policy from your state (we have a playbook for that!). They could be environmental groups, prominent public officials (e.g. mayors, state reps), business leaders, trade association, religious or community organizations, researchers and academics, etc. You don’t need to exhaust this list during the Hour of Action, but it’s very useful to have going into a meeting.
Oil & Gas Threat Map by state/county
Energy Consumption by type/state from the U.S. Energy Information Administration
Impact of Clean Energy Growth by congressional district, from Clean Energy Progress
2050 Projected Renewable Energy Mix by state, The Solutions Project
Climate Signals map from Climate Nexus: how climate change is affecting your area in real time
States at Risk map
Earnings loss for outdoor workers by state
After your meeting
First, report your meeting to advocacy@climatechangemakers.org or to a staff member in Slack. It’s important for us to be able to track our impact, so your meeting data is valuable! It can also be helpful for other changemakers in your district to have that additional context.
Now, your job is to keep up a semi-regular cadence with the staffer or legislator. Feel free to use them as a resource to ask questions about the legislator’s support for the policies you care about. Treat this relationship like you would any other professional relationship. While you should stay in touch, don’t inundate them with emails, and try to give them adequate time to respond.
Our recommended meeting cadence with the same staffer or legislator is once per quarter. Any more frequently than that, and you risk that they just haven’t had the bandwidth to follow through on your request. In that case, you won’t have much to gain from meeting again so soon. An exception could be if you hear that the bill in question is suddenly moving toward passage in the state legislature, and your legislator is going to have to vote on it imminently.
We’re happy to answer all your specific questions about follow up and meeting cadence. Just email advocacy@climatechangemakers.org.
And that’s it, playbook complete! Feel accomplished.
Thank you for taking action.
🎉 CUE CONFETTI by clicking COMPLETE! 🎉
Want more action?
Go to the current Action Plan
© 2023 Climate Changemakers