Advocacy Day offers you a chance to join with like minds to advocate for legislation you feel is important. The face to face meetings with legislators, or sometimes with a Chief of Staff, offers legislators a real time connection to the citizens of their state - even better if the citizens are constituents. It is empowering for advocates to have the direct contact with government representatives. At the state level, you can join with other voices to make yourselves heard and legislators do listen. Where there is disagreement, both advocates and legislators can share their perspectives. Advocacy Day appointments are generally pretty short - 15 - 20  minutes.

Sometimes advocates are concerned that they may not know every nuance of the legislation. While IAHR will offer a briefing on the bills and talking points for advocates in advance of the meetings, IT IS OK NOT TO KNOW EVERYTHING! Advocates can take questions back to IAHR staff to follow up later with legislators who have questions where advocates do not have the answer. In fact, that can be most useful - to learn of questions that we have not anticipated.

Please do join us! If you cannot be free on February 6, but can make phone calls of support to legislators, please contact Sarah Vanags at [email protected], CC Suzanne O’Hatnick at [email protected] and we will be back in touch as the hearings are scheduled.

Welcome to IAHR Citizen Advocacy! Your voice is valuable.