Legislation Grid and Testimony/Advocacy Statement
As a nurse, how often have you thought to yourself, If I had anything to do about it, things would work a little differently? Increasingly, nurses are beginning to realize that they do, in fact, have a role and a voice.Many nurses encounter daily experiences that motivate them to take on an advocacy role in hopes of impacting policies, laws, or regulations that impact healthcare issues of interest. Of course, doing so means entering the less familiar world of policy and politics. While many nurses do not initially feel prepared to operate in this space effectively, the reward is the opportunity to shape and influence future health policy.To Prepare:Select a bill that has been proposed (not one that has been enacted) using the congressional websites provided in the Learning Resources.BELOW IS THE ASSIGNMENT———————-The Assignment: (1- to 2-page Legislation Grid; 1-page Legislation Testimony/Advocacy Statement)Be sure to add a title page, an introduction, purpose statement, and a conclusion. This is an APA paper.Part 1: Legislation GridBased on the health-related bill (proposed, not enacted) you selected, complete the Legislation Grid Template. Be sure to address the following:Determine the legislative intent of the bill you have reviewed.Identify the proponents/opponents of the bill.Identify the target populations addressed by the bill.Where in the process is the bill currently? Is it in hearings or committees?Part 2: Legislation Testimony/Advocacy StatementBased on the health-related bill you selected, develop a 1-page Legislation Testimony/Advocacy Statement that addresses the following:Advocate a position for the bill you selected and write testimony in support of your position.Describe how you would address the opponent to your position. Be specific and provide examples.At least 2 outside resources and 2-3 course specific resources are used.BELOW IS THE REQUIRED READING/ LEARNING RESOURCES———Learning ResourcesRequired ReadingsMilstead, J. A., & Short, N. M. (2019). Health policy and politics: A nurse’s guide (6th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. CORE SKILL: reading a BILL as an artifact — who wrote it, who benefits, who pays, and where in the process it can be influenced.
UNDERSTAND THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS well enough to know WHERE advocacy actually works: bill introduction → COMMITTEE (this is where most bills die, and therefore where advocacy has the highest leverage — a fact worth stating, because students instinctively focus on the floor vote) → markup → floor vote → the other chamber → conference to reconcile differences → executive signature or veto → and then, critically, RULEMAKING and implementation by the agency, which is a separate arena where the actual operational meaning of a law gets decided, and where professional organizations comment.
THE GRID ELEMENTS you will need to populate: bill number and title; sponsor(s) and their party/state/committee position (a sponsor who chairs the relevant committee changes the bill’s prospects entirely); the LEGISLATIVE INTENT — the problem it claims to solve; the target population; the proponents and opponents AND THEIR INTERESTS (follow the money and the professional turf — scope-of-practice bills, for instance, are almost always contested between nursing organizations and physician organizations, and naming that interest structure honestly is analysis, not cynicism); the FUNDING mechanism (an unfunded mandate is a very different animal from an appropriated program); and its current status.
CHOOSE A BILL THAT AFFECTS NURSING PRACTICE: full practice authority / scope of practice; safe staffing ratios; workplace violence prevention (the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act is a recurring one); Title VIII nursing workforce development funding; the Nurse Licensure Compact; APRN Medicare reimbursement parity; telehealth flexibilities.
THE ADVOCACY/TESTIMONY STATEMENT — the genre rules, because it is graded on form as much as content: it is SHORT (typically 2 minutes spoken). Lead with WHO YOU ARE and your credibility (“I am a registered nurse with X years in Y”). State your POSITION in one sentence. Give ONE compelling patient story — a specific, concrete, de-identified narrative, because legislators remember stories and forget statistics. THEN back it with DATA. Make a SPECIFIC ASK (“I urge you to vote yes on HB 1234”). Thank them. Do not read a research paper aloud; that is the commonest failure and it wastes the two minutes you get.
KNOW THE VOCABULARY: lobbying vs. advocacy (nurses can advocate freely; formal lobbying has registration requirements); grassroots vs. grasstops; coalition-building; policy windows (Kingdon’s multiple streams — problem, policy, and politics streams must converge, and a POLICY ENTREPRENEUR exploits the opening); PACs; and the difference between statute (law) and regulation (agency rule interpreting the law).
Also address: how the bill would change YOUR practice, and what the counter-arguments are — a testimony that cannot state the opposition’s best argument is not ready to face it.
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