Industry sign banking oregon ppt easy
as you know we're in a long legislative session and uh the capital is closed and there's a lot of stuff happening that's going to impact business and and folks don't really know how to engage and there's a really actually very cool system that you can use to engage but most people don't know how to get in the front door with it so we are here today with josh tompkins who's with dick's auto group and with andy smith who's with the city of hillsboro they're going to take you on a virtual tour of how you can amplify your engagement with state legislators so josh i'm going to turn it over to you yeah thanks deanna um thanks everybody for being here again josh tompkins dick's auto group i'm currently the chair of the public policy committee for the hillsborough chamber and i sit on the political action committee as well i've been involved with the chamber in these two ways uh for going on three years maybe a little bit more than that um so part of this is going to be going over my piece at least we'll be going over how to get involved maybe through the chamber or other trade organization type of lenses and some other stuff um and then andy's going to go through the uh olus system with us to show you how to check out bills and track committee meetings and everything during the legislative session which is very handy to to stay on top of all this stuff so i'm going to share my screen um [Music] there we go great can everybody see the powerpoint advocating for your business and accessing legislators i went with the very fanciest uh powerpoint design i could find so please don't be too shocked by how good looking this is but um essentially this is all about just um as a business owner or someone in the business community what's the best way to talk to our state local federal even very very local the city council washington county commissioners that sort of thing on up through the state level through a couple of different avenues so let's go ahead and get started i think so just very briefly off of the top and i made this thing to be a little bit light um so pulling back the curtain on how to interact with legislators i think the most important thing to keep in mind is that they're just normal people um just because they've you know achieved elected office at some level doesn't mean that uh this is a famous person or somebody that you can't access or really that they're not there to help their constituents the people in their districts whatever that may be have their voice heard whether that be you know locally here in in washington county or hillsborough at the state level in salem and maybe even you know at a federal level to varying degrees of um effectiveness which we're gonna go through so you know i start here with with what's the point of this whole thing um elected officials operate best when they're provided with feedback from their constituents i was taught a long time ago in a former life working more directly in politics that you know it's good to keep these stories uh factual statistical historical and most of all personal um just you know you have things that are happening to your business and and you're affected in a lot of different ways obviously cobit is the biggest way we're facing right now in this in the country in the world um and when you're you know interacting with legislators it's just it's important to keep your message succinct uh and topical and that sort of stuff so who are these people you know the size of the government abounds the government is everywhere that means people that work for and were elected to the government uh are all over the place um you know you can find most of them by googling a quick google search you can find who your legislator is and how to contact them so i didn't go into that here but it's all about you know first determining where you want your message to go um is it federal is it to the state level is it here in washington county hillsborough are you looking for the dog catcher to tell them a story about you know what your street should be like which is a joke but i'm just showing sort of sort of the scope of of who's available to you uh do they care yeah they do they're there to care and by and large building a relationship or even just having access to a local legislator they're there to care about your story your factual statistical historical and personal story and see if they can't help find a solution for you or your industry uh how do i reach them there are a lot of ways to get a hold of these folks which is most of what i'm going to go through here this morning and also that some ways to access legislators are better than others so i think uh you know since we're here with the small business group uh operating through the chamber i wanted to touch on how to use your business voice to talk to legislators so uh one of the best ways and especially here in hillsborough uh is the chamber of commerce obviously deanna and her team and the volunteer leaders some of whom are on this call today have a lot of experience not only you know effectively interfacing with legislators to get our message heard our legislative priorities heard but also bringing legislators close to the chamber and close to chamber members um when in a non-coveted you know scenario when the when the world is normal is a is a face-to-face um opportunity for for members to talk to their legislators one of the best ways to get involved through the chamber of commerce is to look for a committee this committee that brad runs the small business committee is a great way to start building your business voice and talking about issues and making sure that everybody's sort of on top of what's happening here in hillsborough and washington county but also the public policy committee that i'm lucky enough to chair currently is a great place where we develop those legislative priorities and and figure out which conduit we're going to use to to direct that to salem to the county commissioners to the city council just to make sure that the business voice is heard um every i think it's every january for sure and i think we've done some in the fall um in in recent years but the chamber hosts legislative receptions uh the first few that i went to were obviously in person where you know we had four five six of our local folks you know from all over washington county in different offices so state representatives but also uh state senators um who come and sort of share their perspective on first of all what their priorities are for you know an upcoming legislative session if the reception is a january event they're going to talk about you know what's on the docket maybe what their caucus is is really focusing on the key legislation that they want to um address during the session and also it varies from legislator to legislators some have a background in education we have a few folks here in washington county that that fit that bill some come from a police background like rep noble down in mcminnville so um some come from small business so so everybody's sort of got pet issues uh but there is an overarching theme going into session every time and legislative receptions are a good chance to not only hear what's on the docket uh but also talk about you know what should be on the docket um what your business is facing and and send that home to the legislators so they can take it to salem and and hopefully impact legislation uh there was through the chamber um a couple years ago pre-copied we did a day at the capitol i was lucky enough to attend uh senator betsy johnson joined us for a really enlightening uh question and answer period um but that's you know going basically to the home turf down at the salem capital at the oregon capital in salem and having legislators come meet a group talk in sort of more of an intimate setting about issues and maybe what's even just happening that day i think one of the best uh things you know to take away from a day at the capitol is it's sort of like i put on my first slide it sort of pulls back the curtain on what's actually happening that this isn't just sort of some sort of uh uh impossible to understand undertaking that's happening in a town you know 60 miles down the road from here um that we don't have access to you can go in there are legislative days for everybody there are a bunch of different ways to to listen to committee uh committees address issues uh hearings on bills etc so it really sort of if you're interested in being part of the process this is a great way to just sort of demystify it and also you know currently deanna serves as essentially the lead for government affairs and public policy for the chamber and she has a ton of experience working not only with legislators but on issues for the business community here so a valuable resource there on top of the chamber of commerce option there are trade associations and business advocacy organizations pretty much for everybody if you have you know a flower shop there's probably an association for you either on a national level maybe there's there's some here on the state level but again the best way to think of those is just sort of a conduit they're going to know about your issues from federal government on down and help you sort of uh get your message to the right people through those organizations uh some of them have lobbyists that are paid staff federally some here in the state who are down in salem every day and it's their job to make sure these issues stay in front of legislators again i want to go back to personalizing your message when talking to legislators or or sending it however you know through whatever uh conduit once again that you see fit so developing your message is your message helpful and is it timely how exactly does it impact your business and better yet how exactly does it impact your industry um a singular business story maybe with a very specific uh problem you know that's occurring to their shop specifically isn't going to be quite as impactful as maybe like i'm in the auto business um we're facing a lot of privileged taxes and unemployment taxes just like everybody else is our scale's a little bit bigger and we can also you know sort of get feedback from other people in our industry to show that it's not just me josh who's mad about something happening in my shop but it's us in you know the whole western part in washington county uh who are dealing with you know the corporate activities tax um we even had a privileged tax put on every vehicle that we sell about three years ago maybe two years ago i can't quite remember um that you know essentially we have to just keep passing along to the consumer as it works and our legislators need to know that so if you can make your message a little bit bigger than just i'm having a hard time that's very helpful again how big is your issue is it a federal issue you can write your senator or congressperson you can send an email that will go to a specific inbox for them and you probably will get a form letter back that says essentially we see you we hear you we're sorry that's happening but we're working on it um and then as you sort of you know tighten the focus on that to the state level where again here in washington county we're really lucky to have elected officials who are tapped in especially through the chamber of commerce who stay close to our business issues and quite honestly party affiliation matters less than messaging and being able to tie it to the community that uh elected official represents um which brings me to the stay on point bullet point there uh your story is important don't let it get lost a lot of times partisan politics come into play in a way that make your message even if it's if you're really suffering from it or if it's really impactful to your business or industry don't let it get lost just because your representative might not uh see your politics the same way or or you know be into the same politics as you one of the things i learned a couple years ago through a planning session with with the chamber here is that is the term partisan pro economy which i think is a really cool way to uh that that through the lens of the chamber of commerce and other trade organizations lets you keep your message nonpartisan and very specific to your business or industry so keep that in mind your elected official may not be somebody you voted for but you still can't access them in a meaningful way and have your message heard if you're just professional and personal about it [Music] and also as i'm going through this i can't really see anybody but if you want to you know if you have a question or deanna if you see them i'm happy to do that in the middle of it all um as far as uh submitting testimony on any legislation this is something that andy smith is going to go over in in more detail here with the oregon legislative information system so this is olis this was one of the the two main topics for today's uh meeting but this is where in the state of oregon you can track bills you can figure out you know is it senate bill 127 is a house bill where is it in the process has it had its first hearing uh in committee um did it make it through committee are they actually going to vote on it did it get knocked down and replaced by something every day at the capitol there's uh you know a lot of horse trading going on where you know your bill dies as long as you jump onto this one and you have to vote for this one then i'll vote for that so it's a good way to just keep track you can check it every day it's updated every single day with all committee hearings what bills are going to be where and that's also a good place to find your legislators so the testimony process so a bill has to be scheduled for hearing before you can register for testimony which means a bill will be introduced or maybe at a chamber legislative reception you will have heard like well senate bill 367 is the one that's the you know corporate activities tax or whatever it might be so that's you know the idea and as the formal session gets started that bill will be introduced and it will then be scheduled for hearing um again it's something you can find out on olas uh and then you can register to testify so essentially there are two ways to do it um verbal and written you can at this point what we do is you know you call you register and then you call in on a big conference call whatever committee it's in will have rules about you know how long you can testify sometimes it's 30 seconds maybe it's a little bit longer depending on how many folks are trying to do it but this is a good opportunity to hear other people in your industry maybe if you don't have a good idea of how this is affecting people in medford or bend or eugene or whatever maybe even just across the portland metro and clackamas county um you'll get a better idea for who cares about the same things that you do uh maybe get a you know hear a better way to to build your messaging um maybe not for testimony but as you're talking to legislators and it gives you a a concept of how big this issue might be um the other option is written testimony we've done this a lot well we've done both both through the chamber of commerce uh as recent as last session but you can also submit written testimony in the same way um the why of it all this is the one way to get your story and and uh your voice on the official record um so that it never goes away from there um so as you can imagine you've got a big issue uh you register to testify and whether you do it on the phone or uh written all of it you know goes in a big pile and sometimes when that pile's big enough that's when legislators will really start to listen to that issue a great place to start again is not just olas but oregonlegislature.gov is actually a pretty efficient and effective website for a government website to help navigate this process another way that we've uh operated through the chamber and i've had experience through other trade organizations is through a product called voter voice which is essentially online grassroots advocacy voter voice does a few things really well it can help a large group let's say all the members of the chamber of commerce the legislative priority is that there's a tax coming
own the line that is going to affect everybody here in washington county uh and maybe you know through the chamber of commerce we can show people how to use voter voice which is essentially a form letter linked to all of the legislators in a specific area that is determined essentially by your address what people do is go in put their name in where they live that zip code ties them to whoever their state reps and senators are um and the form letter will say you know to whom it may concern you're free to alter these letters if you want to but you don't necessarily have to um you know it's a to whom it may concern i'm a resident of washington county we understand that senate bill yada yada yada is going to impact us this way we're very concerned about the business community and how this impacts our ability to you know serve the community in this way put your information in there it looks like it came from you specifically hit send it goes directly to your legislators when it gets to your legislators is a little bit of a different story uh this is kind of the same concept of submitting testimony right where um a critical mass of these voter voice emails while they all might say the same thing it will and pretty much do say the same thing getting a couple emails from concerned constituents is one thing and most legislators do a good job of responding or a staff person does if there's a huge amount of outcry on a specific issue legislators are going to see hundreds of these maybe in their inbox so they'll know that when it comes time to vote for whichever bill is is the issue for for the business community they'll know that they've heard from a lot of people so this is i put there mobilizing a thousand voices this is a good way to just sort of uh like like i said create a critical mass of of information on one topic so that a legislator is more likely to you know keep an eye out for what's next or really dig into an issue maybe it's just a small part of the bill that really affects the auto industry and the auto industry came out strong against it so they can actually look at it again it's easy access for constituents it's easy to take part in i know the state chamber does a lot of voter voice stuff you'll see this a lot through national organizations as well but it is a pretty darn effective tool if it's used right on a local level so finally i'm going to start at the bottom here this quote is often attributed to our founder here at dick's auto group dick in youkai but i'm sure it's a quote that's been around forever but he used to say they don't have a reason to care until they know you do first so a legislator can operate sort of in a void if they're not told what to do that's sort of you know they'll tend to go down party lines more often um they can detach from their community if they don't hear from their community so so focusing your message and figuring out the conduit to access these folks is extremely important because if you don't tell them they don't care or they don't know is a better way to put it they care but you can't care about something you don't know about um obviously you know we send a message with how we vote uh for state reps every two for for senate every four in the state of oregon um so they will hear that message but as far as anything specific pertaining to your business um if you don't reach out and you don't get involved um you know that they they just don't know you're out there so a few great ways to get involved outside of just maybe the chamber or business organizations um you can run for something uh it doesn't take much just a few you know filings with the secretary of state and a little bit of support and you can run for city council you can run for washington county commissioner you can run for state representative you can volunteer on a campaign for somebody that is running you know every two years even right now we're looking at campaigns ramping up in washington county for a lot of different things and for a lot of really good reasons that if you look you can probably find a reason to get involved again you can go to a hearing you can go to a city council meeting you can go check in on the washington county commission you can hear online pretty much anything across the state at this point and it's a great way to build context around some issues and maybe build some relationships that way on top of that join committees join the chamber and then join the public policy committee maybe go to events such as the legislative receptions and again it's not just the chamber there are a lot there are a handful of organizations here in washington county um that you can find that might be helpful on your issue and you know dial for dollars they're just a million different ways to get involved on a campaign or just with a legislator at a lot of different levels so um at this point if there are any questions anybody have any questions uh on any and all of that before we move along yeah brad so what what is your recommendation josh for the the happy medium if you email your rep or your senator and they don't you get the bounce back hey thank you for your we got your email basically generic and you haven't heard anything what do you become the squeaky wheel does that is that beneficial or does when do you become annoying and they become you know do you keep sending weekly emails till you actually get a response or i know in the past i've emailed legislators and some of them respond with that generic email next day and i some of them i've gotten responses like a month and a half two months three months later with the generic response so i just don't know you know if you're sitting there waiting should you keep harassing or is that gonna hurt your cause yeah that's a good question so i would say this if we're talking about something like voter voice um where it's a form letter you're attaching your name to it and it's going to your specific elected officials that's one way i mean eventually your name might become so uh common in their inbox that it gets noticed but the best way to approach this in my opinion is to sort of take a cross-section of everything that i just talked about voter voice is one pretty simple easy to use way but the best way to do it is come to the next legislative reception maybe put a face to a name maybe let a legislator know hey i've really been passionate about this issue i've sent you a couple of emails and maybe it's a good time to say thank you for responding even if it's just a form letter and start a relationship that way um let in the other point i want to go back to here is i think this the squeaky wheel or you mentioned when when do you get annoying um i think you lose traction and become quote unquote annoying when you start to bring politics into it that might just muddy the waters in any sort of conversation to get something done again stay on point with messaging you have a specific issue your business needs something solved uh to keep going in the way that you want it to go and that's all we're talking about here we're all trying to be helpful we know that you're elected to help me i'm here to have my my voice heard and ultimately i'm here for my business to succeed so how can we sort of square that circle but i think it's you know it's a cross-section of all these is the best way to do it in my opinion hey josh just chime in hi buddy uh i know the um janine i noticed this morning janine solomon our state rep for some people in the hillsborough area and banks is having a listening session on friday and a lot of our state representatives do a great job of having that so another place besides waiting for the next legislative reception is look at your representatives and see if they host office hours or listening sessions or town halls where you can get have your voice heard or make that in-person connection yeah absolutely maybe that's one that i missed but that's a great point legislators want you to subscribe to their blog and email list and everything that they have so um you know in 15 minutes you can be on every mailing list for every legislator that you know you're a constituent of and find out if they're having a coffee talk on saturday morning with a small group that's also a great way elizabeth because the groups are smaller it's more intimate it's more uh oftentimes more direct to specific issues but yeah thanks for bringing that up josh i would also just add that the chamber um has just organized a march 19th from noon to 1 15 with rep solomon and rep mclean to have a business town hall often times these town halls that happen um on the weekends are filled with have a lot of other constituent issues and so we really wanted to have a session where we could really talk about from a business perspective what's happening during the session and and give some feedback on some bills that we're watching carefully so we'll be doing that throughout the session and again fridays are a good time because it's their their backup and district they're not their committees don't meet during that time so we'll be doing that more frequently as well i also just wanted to add in if i could um i know that sometimes people get discouraged and they think you know my voice doesn't matter it won't count why would i go to this work um and hopefully you've all received in your your inbox about business oregon's commercial property owner relief package and that that's just opened up and i i just want to put my friend brad smith on on the hot seat here to really talk about how that happened because um i really give him and the group that we pulled together all the credit um for getting 100 million dollars for commercial property tax or property relief brad that's your cue yeah uh it works uh believe me and i would just say um our company's been members of the chamber of commerce for a long time and it was always just that's what you do it legitimizes your business you got the sticker on your front door uh and then then i got involved probably i don't know three years ago maybe and not even that and then got more and more and more involved and got sucked in and started actually doing stuff and you know the proof is in the pudding i mean we went from six eight months ago of having no idea how this this pandemic we were gonna get through it as property owners to brainstorming ideas and getting them you know getting the landlord fund through we got the commercial fund through not just us but our voice helped get those through and now there's talk of a tax credit that's in a bill form right now that i testified on yesterday and we're trying to push that through so you know one tiny small business can't make a difference and it's just you just got to be persistent and and keep talking and and also deanna was very instrumental of when you know i started crying the blues she said well let's do something about it let's let's let our legislators know and so you know it it definitely works so fred i would add on top of that just in conjunction with the march 19th event with representatives mclean and salman and then brad you saying it works i'd just like to say these are two state representatives who are in you know third-ish terms second and third-ish terms so they're experienced at this point um i don't think either of them came to that state representative position as business advocates but at this point whenever a business issue comes across their desk they call deanna they reach out to the chamber of commerce they interface with the public policy committee and at legislative receptions and a lot of members and we're slowly but surely um opening eyes to how important maybe whatever your political affiliation or your issues that matter to you weren't small business or the business community but they're now realizing how important it is through the chamber and through and through a lot of the stuff that deanna and a lot of the committees have done so it does work and we're seeing that go ahead oh i have a question um like uh if there's a committee that has the members has your the legislator that represent your district should you just write to uh her or he him no i mean if you don't get a response should you write to everyone in the commission or you should um like write to the chair of the committee um like how do you suggest to approach um yeah i can kind of go into that i think deanna probably has a better answer for that than i do but yeah i think whatever access you think works can work again as long as the message is right they need to hear your voice so if it's not necessarily some somebody on a committee or chairing a committee that represents you directly they're still there to hear the voice of anything that goes through their committee they're listening to the to the people that that affects across the state so i i would say absolutely yes the only thing i would add to that and i know andy's going to cover this much better than i but you know where if you're concerned about a particular bill it's great to start with where that committee um what where that bill sits in terms of what committee and you know to really uh send out your message to the those folks that are deliberating on whether that bill had gets wings or not um and i would also see my local representatives um so that they know where your position is on that issue um but i just think that you know making sure that they that your local reps know and then communicating to the folks that are gonna make the decision whether it's a go no go the one final thing i wanted to add about um the effort with the commercial property um fund was the most compelling part um that of this conversation and the group that we pulled together was their personal stories the fact that they've been in our communities that these are folks that want to help their tenants and the legislators really really were compelled by that so never underestimate your personal story and don't think that they know how a particular bill will impact your business they don't that's your job is to tell them um most of our legislators have not owned small businesses so they don't know how it's going to impact and so you have to you have to really paint the picture for them so that they understand the impact on your business so when they when they vote to do something that you've told them will harm their business they can't say well i didn't know right um and then once you tell them and they vote they vote to support something that's going to harm your business now is your opportunity to hold them accountable and with that are we moving on to andy josh any any final questions for josh all right everybody great job thank you all right now we're going uh to pivot to andy smith who is a government uh relations manager for the city of hillsborough um and he's an attorney so when i get bills that i don't understand because i'm like reading through it and it looks like a bunch of legal ease i send it to andy and say like if this was in the english language what would it say and he tells me so andy welcome thank you thanks for having me um and great presentation josh and um also um through looking at olish uh try and show you all how to um translate what the bill says out of legalese and into just uh common words that everybody understands because that information is on olas as well um so i'm going to try and go through the key functions of oles relatively quickly i'm going to caveat this by saying that i don't have an organized presentation like josh and i actually think in order to you know there's a there would be a um a really thoughtful way to work through all of ola's functions because it's very broad um but um and so i think you know an organized presentation is good and i'll actually give you a resource at the end of this that you can go to if you really want to dive in and spend some time on youtube looking at it because there's a good presentation there as well but olas is the oregon legislative information system and it was developed in order to essentially take all the paperwork that goes along with the legislative process online and make it available to the public and it is i've used a number of different bill tracking systems over the 10 years i've been doing this work um lobbyists pay you
now a good chunk of change to use uh specific bill tracking systems and they have their functions for if you're doing this professionally but at the end of the day i use all this myself almost exclusively to track the legislative process and it's very straightforward and easy to use and it's highly functional which is you know when you're talking about a government developed it project that doesn't always uh that's not always the case but this is a success story i think so i'm gonna try and share my screen um i also have sort of limited technology in my house and so i'm hoping i can see things and show you and share my screen all at the same time all right are you all able to see the the okay so what you see before you um is the oregon state legislature's home page this is not olis um this is the where you access all this so there's good information on this page too and you can see some of the things here a lot of these links are going to take you directly into ollis anyway but i'm just going to go into olas and open it up with this link and so this takes you to the home page of olas and so what i thought i'd show you first is just how to uh find out who your legislator is um so um or i'm sorry uh start show you what the committees look like and where to access those so there's a tab up here in the right hand side called committees and all the work in the oregon legislative process happens in committees so there's a nice drop down menu senate house and then joint committees and so if you click the drop down menu you can see all of the committees and uh that are senate only committees the same is true for the house and joint committees but if you open one of them so let's say housing and development it will take you to the committee's page where it shows you who the members are um chair vice chair and the members you can click on their individual links if you want to know go to their specific information about and how to contact them as individual legislators directly and then on the right hand side you can see all of their committee dates so this goes all the way back to the first meeting of the legislative session and then all the way up until um their most current scheduled meeting so i think today's march 3rd um so i think this committee's next meeting is scheduled for uh march 4th um if you drop down it will show you what bills are on their agenda for that day and so by finding your individual legislator um you will you can also see the committees that they are listed on i'm not going to navigate back to that first page with the oregon state legislature's website but if you there's a tab at the top it says house and the tab that says senate you can drop down and see all of the members and if you click on their names it'll tell you what committees they're on so that will give you an idea there as well so tracking tracking bills and learning more information about them first of all if you drop if you click on session here and you drop down you'll see all the previous sessions as well um but if you click if you're in a legislative session like we are right now if you click on today that'll take you back to this basically what is happening in the legislature today maybe it's actually just worth spending a little bit of time on this page just to give you an idea of what that looks like so meetings today drop it down it'll show you all of the committees that are meeting and what time they're meeting um this little icon here at the end of each one is their specific agenda so if you click on it it will again go to their page um when it's the actual day of the meeting it will show you what is on their agenda um uh when you see senate third readings and house third readings um that means when a bill is actually gonna be voted on on the floor of the house or senate and so if you drop it down there's not any items to display because they're not voting on bills yet um second readings are after a bill comes out of committee um and then it is going to be second read that's just another step in the process it just shows you the advancement of the legislative calendar um and then first readings these are bills that are being introduced um so this is what the senate has planned to introduce today that's a lot of bills that have not been introduced yet that are um i'm sure if you go to the house um you will see something quite similar to what i just showed you in the senate um committee reports i would say these are not as probably valuable for the average follower of the legislative process but it's where you can get additional information on specific bills sometimes you can find people's explanations of votes and things of that nature coming out of committee um also note that up up here you can see that the senate convenes at 11 o'clock today on the floor there's a camera icon you can click on that and you can watch the live stream of them introducing all of those bills and you'll get the catch line when they when they read it um so you can kind of indicate you know if it's relating to small businesses you know that might be one that you want to dig into further based on the catch line um so i thought i'd show you sort of going using a specific bill as an example and it's one i'll just use one that deanna mentioned because the hearing the first public hearing anyway happened yesterday but if i click on bills it'll bring down this drop down menu and you can search a bill by its bill number which is the most straightforward way i think to search things but if you're doing research sometimes you know you don't know the bill number but you know the topic or a specific word for example and you can search by the bill text or you can go to bill sponsor and you can essentially look at every bill that a legislator has introduced so maybe i'll show you like representative mclain so if you scroll down to uh representative mclean you do the drop down menu you can see bill she's chief sponsoring so these are really her bills that she's leading on if she's the chief sponsor she's got you know a respectably sized list but not overly sized for a long legislative session and then when other bills that she's sponsoring um again she hasn't doesn't look like she's signed on to that many bills these are usually bills that somebody else has introduced that she likes and has been asked to sign on to and so she did but that's a way you can see specifically what bills any particular legislator is signed on to but if you go back to this bills tab i'm just going to type in senate bill i'm going to type in 330. oops got to go to build bill number and then you know it brings you up a list of anything that includes 330. but senate bill 330 just to use as an example so um this is the place that you can get specific information about a specific bill so right now we have the the page up for senate bill 330. it shows you the overview which is where we are at now and the overview we show you the chief sponsors regular sponsors it will show you the title and the catch line of the bill you can access professional staff information which i'll talk about a little more in a minute it also shows you the future of this bill so some bills only go to a policy committee and right now this bill is in the um senate committee on housing and development its current committee um sometimes they leave a policy committee and they go directly to the floor and that's how most bills go this bill is a is dealing with the policy itself and it's also a tax credit so it has a subsequent referral meaning that after this committee votes on it it will have to go to the joint committee on tax expenditures where they will evaluate the revenue impacts to the state before it can go to the floor so that's sort of the next procedural step you can see right here if there's a subsequent referral and then you can look at the measure history and it'll just show you when it was introduced it'll show you where where it was referred and it'll show you that it had a public hearing on march 2nd yesterday so when the committee votes or takes further action on this it'll populate with the measure history and tell you what the current step is in the process so you can always look down the most recent entry is where it's at on that particular day andy can i just ask a question there where it says um public hearing held and it's um it's obviously a link that goes out that links you back to all the public testimony that was given is that correct um it doesn't it can but an easier more straightforward way to access it is under the if you're on this page where you're in the bill itself um then all of that information is up here at the top so you you can access the build text either by clicking on this link where you can access the build text in this drop-down menu and um sometimes the easiest way to do that get the text is just to click this but when most bills if they're moving along in the process will be amended at some point and so if this drop-down menu will show you the introduced version and then any amended versions that are subsequent to that so if they adopt amendments to senate bill 330 they will be engrossed and it will be senate bill 330a and then senate bill 330a will be available on this drop down menu along with the introduced version so you can see how the build where it started to where it's at with amendments as it's being engrossed um if you click on analysis now this is where you can you can get the legalese broken down into english and this is really important because these doc these documents down here will actually tell you what the bill is and i'll try and just bring it up and show you this is this tells you what the measure does and it gives you some background on the measure itself and these will probably get longer and they'll they'll update them when amendments are incorporated into the bill to tell you most recently what it does but it's a much much easier way to access that information rather than trying to read the bill itself in the text so now i'm going to try and get out of that okay give me just a minute to get back to all this here i think that um the one thing i wanted to point out was that just to remind all of our uh participants that any when they testify before the legislature that's a public document or a public recording so anybody can access it so just keep that in mind that's a that's a good point and i'll show you that if you click on the tab up here that says testimony this is where all your testimony shows up that's written right so you can see there was a bunch of testimony introduced um i'll show you how to also submit testimony and then watch the recording as well which i think is is important so to submit testimony you do it at the committee's home page so i'm back on the housing and development committee which is where senate bill 330 was heard as you can see there's a down here it says click to submit testimony and so if you click on that this is new this year with the virtual process but it's pretty straightforward right now there's nothing there's no bills to submit because the records closed i think um from the last hearing but there there would be um below no where no measures available for testimonials there would be um either one or two or three bills however many are on their agenda you just simply click the build that you want to submit testimony you there's another box that says support oppose or neutral you click that box and then there's um a a a way to either um do it uh via email or to attach a pdf um so i i didn't see an option to attach a word document so if you want to submit written testimony you probably want to create a pdf and it's simply uploading it there and then clicking submit and then it goes and it's posted relatively quickly thereafter and then if you want to sign up for in-person testimony um let's see this one might be a little harder to find because usually you have to have a bill that's scheduled um to do that but it's on the same page um you would there's a link to sign up just to uh for in-person testimony and it's extremely straightforward it's basically the same process as uploading your written testimony you enter your name your organization in the bill you want to testify on and you you click send and then you get an immediate email reply with a link to the meeting um and instructions for either doing it on video um through the meeting link or um on a cell phone um and uh and then they give you some ground rules of uh um when you're actually in the meeting how to go about waiting your turn and uh and things of that nature so um that's how you sign up for in-person testimony and then the last thing i'll i'll show you is uh and then i can take any questions that might which might actually be the most valuable way um to answer your questions is if you you always is great for research and a lot of the current issues that are around have been around in the past and if you actually want to know some you know some of the background it's worth going in and looking at previous iterations of the bill so for example if if there's a proposal on to change the commercial activities tax in 2021 which i'm not sure that there is um in a fundamental way anyway you might want to go back and just look at the staff measure summaries and some of the testimony in 2019 when the commercial activities tax was established you can do that by um by selecting the session of which the bill happened so if you go into 2019 um you can uh using the same steps and links that i showed you before you can find that information you can watch the hearings that happened they're all recorded and available um and review the testimony and it's all in bolus you just make sure that you're in the correct session that's the key so if you're trying to find house bill 24 17 and it's a you know that was the commercial activities tax bill if you're in the 2021 session you won't be able to find it because it's from the 2019 session so always make sure that you're in the correct session for what you're looking for so why don't i just stop there and just end by saying that um senator johnson um on her facebook page has a youtube video that she is co-presenting in where it's about 45 minutes long and she walks through olas so that would be a place to get i think probably a better thought out more specific presentation walking you through the oregon legislative information system i can answer any questions andy i've noticed that occasionally there'll be a public hearing for a bill and it'll say invited testimony only can you submit written testimony to that or is it just they've just taken verbal testimony from invitees yeah so that generally no they won't they won't accept uh written testimony it's a little bit different if they have invited testimony for a portion of a bill and then they're opening it up to the public but generally written testimony is when they're having a public hearing um rather than an informational hearing which is when you see information informational testimony only it's generally going to be an informational hearing where they're not creating a public legislative record of input from the public hey andy uh there's one can you go to like on that sb 330 can you show them that how you can click and um sign up to get notified when anything changes on there because that's been very helpful for some of the stuff i've been tracking yeah um so i i believe that you do that on the oregon state legislature's main page and i can try and go back there so it's been so long since i've signed up for this i think i'd have to find it um it's probably under citizen engagement would be my guess um i think you can do it through the actual bill too or through the committee page yeah you may very well be able to um i think that this is the the porthole though there you go you go to citizen engagement on on the another option anyway to go to citizen engagement and then um it takes you to this page and you can e-subscribe to alerts from the capitol um you know i set mine up just where i get notified when every single committee posts for a public hearing or post their agenda as a way to scroll through but i think there are options to tailor it to specific issues or specific committees as well you can also set it
p for specific reps or or senators so anything that they do you get notified as well and i would just say be careful what you sign up for they are prolific um in terms of the number of emails you will get it's like i'm like what did i sign up for it's a lot um so if you really are just tracking one bill to brad's point just sign up for updates on that bill if it's a specific committee that you're tracking just that one otherwise i mean you're gonna get quite a bit of email every single day that's a great point i probably get a hundred emails a day from oles right now so um definitely you know going through this this portal here it tells you that you can sort of indicates you can tailor it so yeah if if you're only tracking a couple things or care about a couple things it might be best to think hard about what you click that you want to receive correct all right folks other questions for andy um or josh even um happy to open it up and this is a great opportunity that if even if you're like um i'm a little nervous about doing this um you can certainly talk about that here and we can sort of walk you through and again brad testified yesterday he's here still today to tell us about it so um didn't kill him and uh and brad maybe just to share a little bit of that experience what it was like um because i think there's always also a fear of what if i get asked questions i mean is a committee common do they commonly ask questions to me it kind of seems like they want to get through it they don't necessarily do a lot of follow-ups unless it's invited testimony then they're a little more strategic andy is that about right yeah that's right i think that you know for a small business owner who's testifying you know they may ask you a question about your own business um and which you could probably answer if they say hey what do you think about the dash two amendments you know are you supportive with those and you know they're they've proposed it an hour ago and you haven't read them and you probably need uh like most of us would some analysis from experts to really understand what they mean for your business then i think you just say it's totally fine to say hey i haven't taken a look at them yet um you know happy to follow up or um but generally i support the intent or i oppose the intent of where we're at right now i i would just add to having watched two or three bills that i've been following uh and testifying on one um josh's comment about these are just normal people is spot on because you know the one i was watching yesterday that i testified on i was a little surprised at some of the senators were ill-informed or didn't even understand some of the the broader concepts um so i think i think to be intimidated is is it's it's up to each person and i would say also doing it remotely is a lot different than i would assume sitting in a committee room with everyone staring at you i mean you basically it's you sign up and then it's hurry up and wait and you just sit there listening to testimony waiting to hear your name and then you you go and then you're done and you know the the one that i testified on yesterday they they asked questions of some people and others they didn't and some of the senators would ask questions that were more like their their way of making a point through a question rather than asking the question for for information uh but they were that for the most part when they were asking questions they genuinely were asking legitimate questions of business owners of how is this affecting you and you know what are your what are you seeing so you know they they do pay attention you know you know i've seen a lot of stuff of at the federal level and you just see these these senators that seem like that they're just talking to talk and it it has not felt like that for the most part from the stuff i've paid attention to all right we're getting ready to wrap up the the last thing i would say is just you know oftentimes we get frustrated by the bills that are being contemplated and you know we're kind of like what could they be thinking um that's probably something you don't want to say during your testimony um decorum is important um it's one of those things that you know if you come at it from a standpoint of of being really um upset and um and and rather critical often times that's when they kind of tune out but i think telling your story and the impact on your business um in a way that's meaningful and and passionate um is much more a better approach to take than anger so just always keep that in mind that you know they're really interested in learning about your business and you it's your opportunity to express your passion around what you've built right and what they need to understand the information you want to convey to them about what you've how you've built your business and what impact this is going to have on your business and you know and and just come from it from the standpoint of they probably didn't know and so you're providing really important information that allows them to be better legislators because they can take that information to their colleagues and you'll hear oftentimes if you tell a really great compelling story they're going to be on the floor telling your story again to their colleagues because that's something in their back pocket that they can pull out and use to persuade their colleagues to think about things differently so this really a great opportunity and yeah there's nothing more powerful you know sending me down to tell your story is not nearly as impactful as you showing up to tell your own story so i would encourage you to do that and that was really the point of this entire session was let's break down the barriers to engagement with your legislators and you know take it to that next level look for the opportunities and if you need help with writing testimony or what you're going to say you know send it to me i'm happy to take a look at it um and then i'll send it to andy and josh and say did i do okay um so but really don't be afraid of that engagement opportunity and you know it's the it's the citizens government and you know if you don't show up they don't know so i'm really encouraging you to do that i want to thank josh and andy for doing this this is great information really really helpful and i hope to see you on some screens in either a senate meeting or a house meeting thank you all very much
