Legislative letter

1. Identify a health policy problem and solution for which you would like to perform a stakeholder analysis.

• Ideally, you should perform a stakeholder analysis on a bill that is currently being entertained in the state legislature or U.S. Congress and for which you are able to access testimony from proponent and opponent stakeholders (TEXAS) would be the state.
• You might consider one of the options from the following (non-exhaustive) list:
• Workplace violence against nurses
• Out of control health spending
• Medicare and Medicaid Reimbursement/Enrollment
• Social Barriers Influencing Health
• Authorization of Home Health Care
• Climate Change
• Gun Violence
• Tobacco Regulations
• Access to Mental Healthcare
• Telehealth
• Maternal Morbidity and Mortality

Briefly describe the bill or other health policy you will be analyzing in the field above the table to provide context

Identify a list of stakeholdersindividuals or organizations/associations who have an interest, or stake, in the outcome of the bill.

• These may include proponents, opponents, or interested parties or citizens/populations affected by the bill/policy.
• The primary legislative sponsor will have a particular interest in seeing the bill passed as well, but this is assumed. So, you may omit that person from the stakeholder list unless your instructor tells you otherwise.
• You will be able to determine the stakeholders, and their stake, by reading their testimony (if you are using a bill). Additional sources of information may include news articles or news blasts from stakeholder associations.

Instructions

To complete this assignment, read the following below and follow the steps as directed.

• 1. Review Your Chosen Health Policy Issue

Review the issue you selected for your stakeholder analysisas well as the analysis itselfin preparation for writing a letter to your legislator advocating a particular action on that issue.

• Step 2: Plan the Letters Content
• Step 3: Assemble and Submit the Letter/assignment

STEP 2: Legislative letter-writing is an art. You will need to plan the content of your letter strategically.

For tips on crafting your content effectively, review the post

on allnurses.com.

Note: It is not necessary to include formal APA citations in your letter, but you should include appropriate statistics to support your ideas and it should be evidence-based. For example, if writing about the need for children to have physical education in schools, an appropriate reference would be something like According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, children should be involved in physical activities on a daily basis. You may cite with superscript and citations in italics below. AMA style is acceptable as well.

Step 3: Assemble and Submit the Letter

Now that you have determined the content of your letter, your will need to assemble that communication into a concise package to submit for initial approval.

*****Form of Address of the Letter

First, be sure to use the appropriate form of address and salutation for elected state official.

The Governor (in texas)

The Honorable (full name)

Address

Governor, State of Delaware

Dear Governor (last name),

A State Senator (in texas)

The Honorable (full name)

Address

State Senator (if to the President, use President of the Senate)

Dear Senator (last name),

A State Representative (texas based)

The Honorable (full name)

Address

State Representative (if to the Speaker, use Speaker of the House)

Dear Representative (last name),

*****Structure of the letter

General Guidelines

The letter should be approximately one page long, single-spaced. It should also be written on your own letterhead.

Suggested Structure

Shown below is a suggested structure for your letter.

Date

Address

Salutation,

Introduce yourself in the first paragraph. Tell your legislator that you are a Registered Nurse and graduate nursing student (but do not indicate that you are writing the letter as a course assignment). Share how long you have lived in their district (Dallas Texas native born and raised). Use this introduction to find common ground with your representative. Did you grow up with any similarities?(Aunt of 4 nieces, no children, love to travel as a travel Nurse)…. Do you have mutual interests? ( I love to play sports such as track and swimming, I also play the piano)….Can you acknowledge their support of a similar cause in the past? Can you relate this bill to their profession as a teacher, business person, or even as a parent? Use a sentence or two to show youve done your homework and you know their background and their work.

Use the second paragraph to select one or two talking points to make your point regarding nursing practice. Explain the role of the Nurse Leader and/or how this particular issue pertains to your practice. (current ER nurse, DNP-FNP student role with a future primary care practice ). Then identify ways in which this affects your community.

In the final paragraph, conclude with a question such as Are you willing to commit the states financial resources for (state) nurses? or Are you willing to advocate for allocation of federal funds to support nurses in (state? or Can your constituents count on you to support (bill number)? I look forward to your response to this question and am willing to serve as an expert resource in the future. The question format will open the door for continued communication. Give an invitation to contact you in the future. Try to reference legislation currently proposed or recently supported or opposed by the legislator.

Sign your name and include your credentials and address!

Checklist

Before you submit your letter, use the following checklist to make sure your submission meets assignment requirements!

1. Is the letter constructed with professional business format (date, recipient, salutation, body, closing, signature)?
2. Are your credentials correctly listed as instructed and evaluated in your biosketch assignment?
3. (e.g. are you representing yourself personally as a constituent)?
4. Are you very clear in your understanding of whether your recipient is serving at the state level or the federal level and is their title designated appropriately in the letter heading?

• If your legislator is serving in your state Capitol, their title should be State Representative or State Senator.
• If your legislator is serving in the United States Congress in Washington D.C., their title should be U.S. Representative or U.S. Senator.

1. Is your letter free of spelling and grammatical errors? (Double and triple check the spelling of the legislator name especially).
2. Did you cite credible evidence using a narrative reference (e.g. According to the American Association of Nurse Practitioners…. etc.), footnotes or endnotes (a feature in Word), or APA formatting?
3. Did you adequately research your legislators background and seek a common point of connection in your opening paragraph?
4. Did you clearly state your own personal experience or connection to the topic at hand?
5. Is your letter less than one page (excluding any reference pages), giving a brief, factual summary?
6. Did you look at the proposed bill adequately?

• Is the bill filed in the current session of Congress (119th) or the current session of the Texas legislature? (If the bill was filed in a previous session but died in committee or otherwise did not progress to adoption, DO NOT ASK THE LEGISLATOR TO SUPPORT THIS BILL. The bill dies at the close of session and must be refiled in the new session. Referring them to a past bill number is confusing and shows your knowledge is not current. It is possible, however, for you to frame your ask in bringing their attention to a dead bill with context as to what happened with it and a request to refile it in the new session).
• Did you look at the list of co-sponsors for the bill and make sure your legislator is not on it if you are asking them to support the bill? (If they already co-sponsored, it is acceptable to thank them for their support and make your ask to continue to support the bill towards passage.
• If the bill is bipartisan (has sponsors in both Republican or Democratic parties), did you use the term bipartisan to describe the legislation? If it is only sponsored by one party, no comment is needed.

1. Does your legislation align with your legislator? (Lack of alignment can result in a significant point deduction. You are encouraged to reach out to your faculty with any questions about this as you work if you are unsure).

• If you are writing to ask support for a bill in the U.S. Senate (S. XXX), you should be writing to one of your two U.S. Senators. (Both U.S. Senators have full representation over the entire state. You may choose to write to the one you feel would be the most receptive or to whom you are most connected).
• If you are writing to ask support for a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives (H.Res XXX or H.R. XXX), you should be writing to your U.S. Representative who represents the state in the U.S. Congress you can find them at congress.gov — refer back to previous exercises in previous modules.
• If you are writing to ask support for a bill in your state House of Representatives, you should be using your state governments search engine to find the specific Representative for your district.
• If you are writing to ask support for a bill your state Senate, you should be using your state governments search engine to find the one Senator for your district.

1. Is your letter free of inflammatory, accusatory, demeaning, or emotional language? Is it objective and evidence-informed?
2. Is your ask introduced in the beginning and restated at the end?
3. Does your conclusion offer to serve as a reference?