A Guide for New Readers

Many readers of People First reports are seasoned advocates. For those who may be new to advocacy work on disability issues, we offer suggestions and information below.

How to Communicate with Your Elected Officials

1.     If you think an H1 for FY06 recommendation for a program or service you care about should be supported, improved, or changed, you should convey your concern as soon as possible to your state representative and state senator.

Who are my elected officials?

·                 You can visit www.wheredoivotema.org to learn who your elected officials are.

How do I reach them?

·                 By email!: You can visit www.mass.gov to learn more about your legislators and obtain their e-mail addresses.

·                 By phone!: You can reach any representative or senator by calling the State House switchboard at 617-722-2000. If you call, you will probably speak with a staff person. That is fine-they will convey your concern to your legislator.

·                 By mail!: You can send your elected officials a letter. All letters should be addressed as follows:

The Honorable Representative Firstname Lastname

OR The Honorable Senator Firstname Lastname

The State House

Boston, MA 02133

·                 In person!: If you can make a personal visit to your representative and/or your senator, it is even better than a call or letter. Call ahead to make an appointment. If you cannot get to the State House, you can ask when the legislator will be holding district hours in the city or town where you live and visit him/her there.

2.     Whatever communication method you use, be as specific as possible in the request you make, using information from this report. Rather than saying something like "I think we need more funding to help out people who are blind," say something like, "I know independent living supports are very essential for people who are blind. Please support restoring line item 4110-1000 at the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind to its fiscal year 2001 level of $4,093,938."

3.     Ask your legislators to convey your concern to the Chairperson of the Ways & Means Committee. Tell your legislator that you will call back within a week to see if they have contacted the Ways and Means Chair-and then you should make that follow-up call.

4.     Even if your representative or senator already supports your position 110%, you should still contact them. Your legislator needs to be able to tell the Ways and Means Committee, "This is a top priority for me. I've gotten 6 calls from my district about this line item. We need to do something."

5.     Ask and help your friends and family to make calls, send emails, or write letters as well. Five to ten calls, emails, or letters on the same subject is considered a tidal wave of public opinion at the State House.

Next Steps in the FY06 State Budget Debate

Each step in the budget debate process is a window of opportunity for advocacy efforts to improve programs and services for persons with disabilities. The most important advocacy relationship any person can have is with his or her own state representative and state senator. A , call, email, letter, or visit from a constituent in the district is always the most influential. To be most effective, an advocate establishes an ongoing relationship with his or her state representative and state senator.

Window of Opportunity: The House

H1 for FY06 now has been sent to the House Ways & Means Committee (HWM), chaired by Rep. Robert DeLeo. Committee staff and members are preparing their own recommendations. The HWM FY06 Budget will be released to the full House sometime in late April or early May 2005. Every representative will then have the opportunity to submit amendments to alter those recommendations for funding or policy issues. Usually 500 or more amendments are filed. The House will meet for up to a week in full formal sessions to debate and decide these amendments. (However, because there will be many informal negotiations between leadership and rank and file members, few amendments will be subject to actual roll call votes.)

Advocacy action steps:

·                 Call, email, write, or visit your state representative. Tell him/her about your priorities for the FY06 House budget.

·                 Ask your representative to make your priorities known when she/he speaks with the Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Window of Opportunity: The Senate

The House budget will then be referred to the Senate Ways & Means (SWM) Committee, chaired by Sen. Therese Murray. SWM senators and staff already will have been working on their own set of FY06 recommendations. The SWM FY06 Budget will be released to the full Senate sometime late May or early June 2005. Then there will be a full debate, similar to the House debate, where the fate of the amendments filed by various senators are decided. Since there are 160 state representatives and 40 state senators, the Senate process usually involves fewer amendments and quicker decisions. The full debate usually takes two or three days.

Advocacy action steps:

·                 Call, email, write, or visit your state senator. Tell him/her about your priorities for the FY06 Senate budget.

·                 Ask your senator to make your priorities known when he/she speaks with the Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Window of Opportunity: The Conference Committee

The House and Senate budgets will vary in their funding and policy recommendations. The two budgets will be sent to a Joint House/Senate Conference Committee, composed of three senators and three representatives and chaired by both Ways & Means Committee chairs. While they are not formally members of the Conference Committee, House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi and Senate President Robert Travaglini will have great influence over the Conference Committee negotiations.

The Conference Committee should complete its work by late June 2005. Its single reconciled set of budget recommendations, known as the Conference Committee Report for FY06, is returned to each chamber for a single "yea" or "nay" vote of approval. After it is approved by each chamber, this Conference Committee budget is sent to the governor's desk.

Advocacy action steps:

·                 Call, email, or write the members of the Conference Committee, the Speaker of the House, and/or the Senate President. Tell each of them to include the language and/or the funding that you prefer from either the House or the Senate budgets when they draft the Conference Committee Report.

·                 Call, email, write, or visit your state representative and senator. Ask these elected officials to make your priorities known to the Conference Committee, the Speaker of the House, and the Senate President.

Window of Opportunity: The Governor's Vetoes

The governor has ten days to review that budget and return it to the House with the governor's veto message. He can veto policy changes and he can veto some or all of the dollar amount appropriated to a particular line item. He cannot, however, increase any appropriations at that point in the process.

Advocacy action steps:

·                 Call, email, or write the governor's office to ask him not to veto your budget priorities as stated in the Conference Committee Report. As always, be specific in your request-mention the line item numbers of any particular budget language or particular funding amount you are calling about.

Window of Opportunity: The Legislative Overrides

In the final step, the legislature may vote to pass overrides on some of the governor's vetoes. The House leadership will review the governor's vetoes, decide which ones to challenge, and have formal roll call votes on each. A two-thirds majority vote is needed to overturn a veto. If the veto is not overturned in the House, it will remain in the final budget. If a veto is overturned, it is sent to the Senate, where again a two-thirds majority is needed for each item. If both chambers override a veto, the original Conference Committee recommendation stands as the final version of the FY06 budget. This entire process is supposed to be complete before the formal start of fiscal year 2006 on July 1, 2005.

Advocacy action steps:

·                 Call, email, or write your state representative and senator.

·                 Thanks him/her for the positive aspects of the Conference Committee budget with regard with disability issues. As him/her to vote to override and of the governor's vetoes with which you do not agree.

State Website Budget Resources

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts website has become a great resource for followers of the budget debate. A link from the home page-at www.mass.gov-to "The 2006 Budget Process" will take you to the full governor's H1 for FY06 in an easily searchable form. Other links take you to past year's budget proposals. The flow chart on the next page, which portrays the full budget debate process, is among the many resources provided.

Overview of the budget process Fiscal year 2006 budget documents
Budget-writing steps
Governor's Budget January 26, 2005	The budget begins as a bill that the Governor submits in January (or February if at the start of a new term) to the House of Representatives.
House Ways & Means Budget	The House Ways and Means Committee reviews this budget and then develops its own recommendation.
House Budget	Once debated, amended and voted on by the full House, it becomes the House budget bill.
Senate Ways & Means Budget	At this point, the House passes its bill to the Senate. The Senate Ways & Means Committee reviews that bill and develops its own.
Senate Budget	Once debated, amended and voted on, it becomes the Senate's budget bill.
Conference Committee Budget	House and Senate leadership then assign members to a joint "conference committee" to negotiate the differences between the House and Senate bills. Once that work is completed, the conference committee returns its bill to the House for a vote. If the House makes any changes to the bill, it must return the bill to the conference committee to be renegotiated. Once approved by the House, the budget passes to the Senate, which then votes its approval.
Vetoes	From there, the Senate passes the bill to the Governor who has ten days to review and approve it, or make vetoes or reductions. The Governor may approve or veto the entire budget, or may veto or reduce certain line items or sections, but may not add anything.
Overrides	The House and Senate may vote to override the Governor's vetoes. Overrides require a two-thirds majority in each chamber.
Final Budget	The final budget is also known as the General Appropriations Act or "Chapter [#] of the Acts of yyyy."