End of the year, legislative wrap up: How did your organization do?

The final bills for the year are going through the process. By now your organization should know whether bills are going into a two-year bill cycle or whether it’s been signed and approved by the governor. Does your organization know what to do next? Is it time to pull out those Mai Tais and relax? Or is it time to get back to business and just keep on going? The answer to this question is quite simple. Keep on going. Schedule as many visits with your local legislators to introduce your organization, and make sure you’re in their public eye, even if your issue did not get through this year. The good thing is we are in the first year of a two-year budget cycle for California, which means there’s an entirely second year to the process. It does not happen often, but bills do transfer over to 2, 3, or 4-year processes even though the budgetary cycle restarts itself every two years. The same concepts can be revamped, rethought of, and reintroduced. So, if your organization falls underneath the category of not getting through: our message to your organization is don’t give up. Keep your boots on the ground and keep on going. Think about what’s important to your organization. What carries through? What are the highlights of the issues? For successful concepts, these are just kept in mind, or at least some of them. Political chopping, where they change the language, can occur in bills. However, this should not be a deterrent for any organization. This is just an unfortunate fact of politics. You must learn to roll with the punches and always remember to keep on going.

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