Empowering Oregonians by Monitoring the Legislative Process in Our State.

Volunteer Outline

OCL Warriors,

You have signed up as a volunteer on the Oregon Citizens Lobby website. Each person’s level of involvement will determine how much can be accomplished. We are the grassroots for research that other organizations use to multiply our efforts, so as much as you can do, be assured it goes a long way.

Whether you work independently at home or in the War Room, the GOAL is to identify problematic legislation as soon as possible so testimony can be submitted. Once you suspect a bill of having issues, whether you see it on media or use the process below, you need to send a notice to us by clicking here and submitting the bill information.

There are some basics to get you started:

PART 1 – SEARCHING FOR PROBLEMATIC BILLS

1. When signing up, you selected areas of expertise and experience or knowledge. Sign up to receive email notices of hearings scheduled from the committees that interest you. They list the bills scheduled that need to be reviewed for suspected or problematic issues. Submit your email in this website and a list of all committees will display. Choose the ones you want to follow and submit at the bottom of the page.

2. After bills are assigned to a committee for hearing, you can check a complete list here. This list provides links to the bill information on OLIS and testimony that has already been submitted that can be helpful.

3. If you need help on reading a bill – what’s being added and how to interrupt the jargon, and other training documents, go to the OCL Training page.

4. Now you are ready to send a Notice of the bill information using the form above.

PART 2 – WRITING TESTIMONY

Writing testimony is the goal of Alerts. You don’t need to wait for an Alert to be issued to submit testimony. Each bill on OLIS has an option for submitting written testimony or signing up to testify remotely. Once a bill is on the schedule for a public hearing, testimony can be submitted until the day after the hearing. Then it is closed until the next public hearing is scheduled. Testimony cannot be submitted for a Work Session. At that point all testimony has to be sent directly to legislators.

PART 3 – ORGANIZE YOUR OWN CAMPAIGN

Once Alerts are posted on the OCL website, they are posted on Facebook and sent to volunteers and subscribers. Talk to neighbors and friends that are like minded and have group discussion and send testimony. In many cases, it’s the number of testimonies received that can block or advance a bill, even if it just says “I oppose” or “I support.”

If you are confused or perplexed over a bill: we have volunteer advisors, bring your questions to the War Room, join the OCL chat group on telegram, or write what you don’t understand on the Notice Form. For options and questions email ocl.warriors@gmail.com.

OCL Coordinator

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Volunteer Outline

There are some basics to get you started:

What’s the buzz?

How to find a bill or agenda