[LWVNM Action] Next Action meeting Jan 3, firm up priority list

[Akkana Peck]

Good meeting last night.

We still don't have our top 3 priorities, so we need to work on that over the next two weeks. We'll meet again on Jan 3 to try to narrow the topics down to 3 or at most 4.

Remember, that doesn't mean that we can't lobby on other priorities! Anyone who's registered as a lobbyist for LWVNM can lobby on anything supported by our state positions, and anyone can write a fact sheet to display on our website and give to legislators when they're considering specific bills. The top 3 (or 4) is primarily so we have a short list we can hand out before the session or at events like the Legislative Preview, to tell them what's most important to us.

The broad areas we've discussed (in no particular order) are:

- voting, elections and good government (legislative salaries and redistricting)
- affordable housing
- health care
- immigration
- environment (including water)
- education
- budget and taxes

We have funding specifically earmarked for the first one (voting, elections and good government), so apparently that has to be one of the top priorities. The rest are all important, and they all have good arguments for them, and they will all have LWVNM lobbyists speaking for them. It will be hard to choose which 2-3 are more important than the rest, but we have to do it.

Speaking of registering as a lobbyist: people who plan to speak for the League are asked to register with the Secretary of State (it's free and fairly easy), but DON'T REGISTER YET. Hold off until 2025. If you got an email reminder recently to re-register, ignore it till January. Someone will send out a reminder when it's safe to re-register.

        ...Akkana