Public Policy: Holding Legislators Accountable

We use grassroots public policy advocacy to hold elected officials accountable to the needs of their working class constituents. Each year, we organize mass call-ins, letter-writing campaigns, delegation visits with legislators and public accountability sessions.

These bring low-income activists together with unions, senior organizations, and community leaders to form a coalition that legislators cannot afford to ignore. More powerful than any statistics, the stories of low-income activists put a face on issues like affordable housing, welfare, and child-care.

• Delegation visits bring organizational allies together with low-income activists to meet with legislators to educate them about each of our issues and ask for their support.
• Accountability sessions are large open forums attended by the press where activists give public testimony about the issues affecting their lives, propose solutions and ask for commitments from legislators.
• Call-ins and letter-writing campaigns keep legislators accountable to the commitments they’ve made and pressure those who are still undecided.
• Activists in our Legislative Action Network, a statewide network of allies who contact their legislators around targeted pieces of legislation, increase our ability to impact public policy.