Author: Lutheran Engagement and Advocacy in Nevada

Cool Tools for Staying Informed … And Heard

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By Sheila Freed

We are already a quarter of the way through the 120-day Legislative Session. There are about 1,100 Bill Draft Requests and in less than a month, they all must be introduced. Even people with strong interest in a particular issue can feel they’ll never successfully track what is going on.

Help is available, however. The Nevada Legislature has a wonderful website that enables private citizens not only to stay abreast of what’s going on, but to register their views. Let’s walk through a couple of these “cool tools.”

First, you may not know who your legislators are. Go to www.leg.nv.state.us, the Legislature’s home page. Down the right side is a list of topics. Find “Who’s My Legislator” and click on it. A window will open showing a map. In the top right corner is a space to put your home address. You’ll get back information on who your State Senator and Assembly Member are, complete with contact information.

If you want to learn more about that person, go back to the home page. Look at the top left corner where it says “Legislator Information.” Click on “Assembly” or “Senate” and then choose from the menu at the top of the page to get to an alphabetical list with each legislator’s background. There’s a ton of other information on the “Assembly” and “Senate” pages, including upcoming meetings and the daily calendar.

Politicians often find it safer to study a problem than actually take action to fix it. Have you ever wondered what happens to those studies? Back on the home page, right above “Assembly” and “Senate” is an option for “Research/Library.” Choosing that will get you to the home page for the Research Division of the Legislative Counsel Bureau. The Bureau’s reports on all kinds of policy issues are there.

If you’re interested in a particular topic, there’s a couple of ways to find all the bills that deal with that topic. On the Research Library page, scroll down to “Session and Interim Info” and find “Quick Look-Up by Bill or Subject. Using the subject search for the 2015 session will get you to the same alphabetical sort that is used to index the entire Nevada Revised Statutes, and you’ll find bills from Abandoned Property to Youth Parole Bureau. (Sorry, no Z’s.) If you click on the blue bill number, you’ll go to a page showing the current status of the bill, and a link to the text. As the bill goes through the committee process and the text is revised, you can follow the changes. Each new version shows in a different color.

Another way to find topics of interest is from the Legislature home page. Near the top of the list on the right side is “BDR List.” Clicking there will take you to a page where you can look at the “full list” or “divided list.” Choose “divided list” and you’ll get a search window. You can put in your Legislator’s name to see which bills that person has  sponsored, or you can put in a topic such as “education” or “health care.” This is not a comprehensive search, but it’s a start. Eventually there will be a blue number such as “AB 123” next to each BDR number. That’s the bill number once the BDR gets introduced as a bill. If you click on the blue, you go to the same place described earlier, with the status of the bill and a link to the text.

If you want to know why the language of a bill gets changed, go back to the page where you first looked for the text, the one that says “Status of Bill.” Toward the right, you’ll see information about the committees that have debated the bill. You can read the minutes of those meetings and look at the exhibits or handouts that are presented by people who testify about a bill.

So by now you’re well informed on the bills you have an interest in. You know how to contact your legislator because you looked at the “Assembly” and “Senate” choices on the legislative home page. Their email addresses and phone numbers are right next to their names, and it only takes a few minutes to express your views.

If you want to reach a wider audience, go back to the home page and scroll down the list on the right side. You’ll find “Share Your Opinion on Legislative Bills.” That opens a box where you can enter a bill number, then indicate “for” or “against” and add comments. Identifying information is required, to show you’re a live voter, not the creation of some activist or publicist. But here’s another cool thing: At the top of the “Share Your Opinion” box you can choose “View Comments.” Enter a bill number, and you’ll see all the comments others have made about that bill. You can choose “Reports” and see the results sorted in a dozen different ways. Reading the comments can be pretty entertaining.

So who needs video games? It’s possible to spend hours on the legislative website, getting smart and having fun. There’s no shortage of issues, many of them controversial. Part of our vocation as people of faith is to “speak truth to power,” and the webmasters at the Legislature make it easy. Lutheran-Episcopal Advocacy in Nevada (LEAN) urges you to do just that.

LEAN MLK Day event sheds light on urgent Nevada needs

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Lutheran-Episcopal Advocacy in Nevada thanks everyone who helped with our event on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day — all who attended, all who responded to our appeal for donations, all who stuffed backpacks, and the businesses and individuals who provided food. We especially thank our outstanding speakers, and Office Depot for the generous discount on school supplies.

Nevada Chief Justice James Hardesty speaks at LEAN's Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday event at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Reno, Jan. 19, 2015.

Nevada Chief Justice James Hardesty speaks at LEAN’s Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday event at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Reno, Jan. 19, 2015.

Volunteers prepare school materials for backpack stuffing at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, Jan. 19, 2015

Volunteers prepare school materials for backpack stuffing at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, Jan. 19, 2015

LEAN’s event on the King holiday was to learn about issues that will be coming up in the 2015 legislative session, and to do the “Backpack Challenge,” designed to demonstrate to legislators that our schools need proper funding. Those who attended heard speakers, some in Las Vegas, some in Reno, connected by video cast.

James Hardesty, Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court, was the featured speaker. He began by giving credit to the faith community for its advocacy in past years for rehabilitation and re-entry programs. He said it has had the effect of changing the culture at the Nevada Department of Corrections. Justice Hardesty described the work of the Nevada Commission on Administration of Justice, and shared some items the Commission will propose to the Legislature. Among those are uniform assessment tools, so that regardless where in the state one is, the same criteria will determine whether a person is fit to release on bail, or whether that person should be paroled. The Commission would like more money allocated to Drug Court and Mental Health Court.

Mr. Mike Raponi spoke about education. He is director of the State of Nevada Office of Career Readiness, Adult Learning, and Educational Options. Some exciting programs are gearing up to train Nevada’s workforce for the technical jobs of the future. Built into the program are incentives to stay in school and graduate on time.

Mr. Shane Piccinini spoke in Reno on behalf of the Food Bank of Northern Nevada. As the public policy advocate for the Food Bank, his agenda is ensuring that federal funding for food programs is not cut. It might be surprising that at the state level, there is sometimes resistance to federal food programs. There are start-up costs and matching-funds requirements that some legislators reject. Who knew there is a Governor’s Council on Food Security? This group is working with the Legislature to remove barriers to federal help for hungry people, especially school children.

The Reverend Lionel Starkes, chair of the Union of Black Episcopalians, spoke in Las Vegas. He recalled some of the inspiring words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He linked Dr. King’s words and actions to the biblical charge to proclaim freedom to the captives. He noted that many remain captive today—to racism, economic and educational inequality, and that it is incumbent on us in the faith community to continue to work for equality for all.

Fill a Backpack for a Nevada Legislator

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By Sheila Freed

The December issue of The Lutheran magazine featured an article about Advent, and how much we miss if we plunge right into the busyness of Christmas right after Thanksgiving. But the thing that struck me most in the article was an illustration by the author, Gertrud Mueller Nelson. Now that we are in the season of Epiphany, the image seems particularly appropriate. It shows the Holy Family in modern dress. Baby Jesus is sitting in a shopping cart. The family is bundled up against the weather, and father, unshaven and with a backpack on his back, pushes the cart past urban high-rises. An angel flies overhead. This could represent the flight into Egypt. But I think there is more to it than that.

Jesus came for the poor, the homeless, the dispossessed of every age, and they are very much with us today. We who do Advocacy talk about the difference between Charity and Advocacy, and we recognize that both are important. Charity is about direct aid to those in need, and Advocacy is about making structural changes in society so the causes of need go away. 

Lutheran-Episcopal Ministry in Nevada (LEAN) will have an event on January 19, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, involving both charity and dvocacy. It’s the perfect time to learn about issues that will be on the agenda of the 2015 Nevada Legislature. Since public school funding is a major issue as always, LEAN will be doing Charity as well. It’s our way of telling legislators we’re concerned about schools and we want them to be, too. Your help is needed.

All new and returning state senators and assembly members have been invited. Those who attend will assemble backpacks filled with school supplies. The backpacks will be given to a low-income school of the legislator’s choice. We’re doing this in January, the middle of the school year, because many children and teachers have used all the supplies they started with in the fall, and there isn’t money to buy more. If you’re living out of a shopping cart, buying notebook paper isn’t likely to be your highest priority, but doing well in school is the way up and out. That is why we’re asking you to consider donating to this effort. Our Advocate, Rev. Mike Patterson, has arranged with Office Depot to buy supplies at a huge discount, so donations will go a long way. Donations can be sent to LEAN at the address above, or through your church office, marked “LEAN backpacks.”

If you prefer to donate items instead of cash, please use this list as a guide: Pencils, pencil bags, ballpoint pens, glue sticks, crayons, colored pencils, highlighters, 3-ring binders, spiral notebooks, erasers, pocket folders, sticky notes, copy paper, lined paper.

If there are questions about this project or about LEAN, please contact Rev. Mike Patterson (mp4675@att.net), or your Parish Communicators.

Join ‘Backpack Challenge’ on MLK Day

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Save the morning of January 19, 2015 to attend a unique event sponsored by Lutheran-Episcopal Advocacy in Nevada (LEAN).   We all know the Education Initiative, Question 3, failed in the November election. Governor Sandoval has said he has a plan to fund public education, but he has disclosed no details. The LEAN event will give our Legislators an opportunity to do something tangible for education.

Watch Rev. Mike Patterson’s video on this special event here.

All new and returning state Senators and Assembly Members have been invited. Those who attend will assemble backpacks filled with school supplies. The backpacks will go to a Title I (low income) school of the Legislator’s choice, and the backpack will include the name of that Legislator.

We hope this will be a fun exercise that will remind Legislators of the need to seriously address education funding.   We particularly want to highlight the needs of Title I schools, which are chronically without resources. There’s a reason we’re doing a school supplies project in January. Many of our congregations assemble school backpacks in September, but by January, heading into the second half of the school year, most of those supplies have been used. This leaves teachers purchasing basic supplies from their own pockets. So in order to pull off this “challenge to Legislators,” we need your help. Please consider donating five, ten, or twenty dollars to buy the supplies to go in the backpacks. Our Director of Advocacy, Rev. Mike Patterson, has arranged to buy supplies at a huge discount from a local office supply store, so your donation will go a long way. Checks can be sent to LEAN c/o St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, PO Box 737, Sparks NV 89432, or given to your Parish Communicator.

The gathering will feature more than stuffing backpacks. James Hardesty, Chief Justice of the Nevada Supreme Court, will speak. Also on the agenda is a representative from Union of black Episcopalians, and a speaker from the State Board of Education. The event will occur simultaneously at Community Lutheran Church in Las Vegas and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Reno, connected by video conference.   A representative of Northern Nevada Food Bank will speak in Reno, and a representative of Three Squares will speak in Las Vegas.

Members of all Episcopal and Lutheran congregations are urged to attend. The event begins at 10:00 am, and lunch will be provided. Please RSVP to mp4675@att.net.

Do Lutherans Do Revivals?

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On October 1, 2014, a press release went out from the ELCA News Service, which is part of the national ELCA.   The release announced a “Prayer Revival” to be held the next day, on the opening day of the annual Conference of Bishops. Since when do Lutherans do revivals? When did you last see a bunch of bishops at a revival? And why now?

The body of the press release explained that the Revival was intended to be a public statement by the church in response to violence generally, but the timing suggests it was mostly a response to the violence in Ferguson, Missouri just a few weeks before. The format was mostly a prayer service, but featured the anointing of hands, as each participant made a commitment to some particular action to enhance peace and justice in his/her own community.

Revival organizers explained that the goals of the event were to “demonstrate that the ELCA is deeply concerned about the violence happening in Chicago and other American cities and the need for improved relations between police and the communities they serve, and to come together as people of faith and pray with each other about these issues.”

The Bishop of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod noted that while the church does not have the power by itself to stop violence, it must take every opportunity to “announce in the public square that we stand in opposition to violence as an acceptable way to resolve human conflict.” He added that collaboration among law enforcement, community organizations, medical and social service providers, political and business leaders and ordinary citizens is essential to address violence.

Advocacy is about making statements in the public square, and ordinary citizens can get involved with just a few clicks of a computer mouse. Although the next Legislative Session doesn’t start until February 2, 2015, individuals can begin to learn about the issues. There is something called a “Bill Draft Request” which is an outline or proposal for new legislation. These “BDRs” are given to the Legislative Counsel Bureau, whose job is to draw up the legal language. Ultimately the bill is introduced into the Legislature. Bill drafts typically are not made public before they’re introduced, but it’s possible to get an idea what a bill is about by its working title.

There are already over 500 bill draft requests, many relating to violence. There are proposals about firearms, bullying, abuse of children and animals, and more. Other subjects for BDRs include education, mental health, economic development, the environment, and even a proposal to allow dogs in bars! A survey by LEAN last spring suggested that our advocacy agenda should focus on education and mental health, but that can change, depending on what we hear from parishioners.

To see the list of Bill Draft Requests, go to www.leg.state.nv.us. This is the home page for the Nevada Legislature. At the top right, under “78th (2015) Session” look for “BDR List.” If you choose “Divided List” you will get a search window where you can put in a topic and get a list of all the BDRs related to that topic. The search tool only looks for words in the BDR title, so scanning the full list will bring in more. The Legislative website has so much information, and it’s quite user-friendly, so anyone who wants to learn how the legislative process works or follow particular issues should definitely spend some time on the website.

LEAN will continue to publish “how to” information as we move through the Session. There are a couple of easy ways to express your views through the website.

LEAN has been working to get the message out that the concerns of individuals and congregations are the foundation of our advocacy agenda. We’ve asked to meet personally with parishioners in order to learn these concerns. So use the website, but please talk to your Parish Communicators as well.

— Sheila Freed