Lobbying
Meet Local Government Contacts
Someone from your group should contact each city councilor about the ordinances. One-on-one dialogues with decision makers can be extremely helpful.
Contact and meet with sympathetic elected officials about your group's concerns. Arrive at each meeting with fact-based, nonpartisan information for the officials, and make sure to address their concerns as well as your own. In addition to your civil liberties and privacy concerns, also explain your concerns about ensuring the ability of law enforcement agencies to focus on their core public safety mission.
Your goal is for city councilors to agree to sponsor the ordinance(s). Supportive officeholders and the local police chief could also be effective panelists in your forum.
Tools:
Customize the Ordinances
Meet with city councilor(s) who agreed to sponsor the ordinances. Share BORDC’s model ordinances with the councilor(s) and go over the provisions of the model ordinances. You can customize the ordinances to your community by adding, removing, or modifying provisions to generate maximum support. Include the mayor, police chief, and other city councilors in the process of customizing the ordinance.
Tools:
Leverage Public Support
Send postcards, emails, and press releases asking community members to call their councilors and attend and speak at the city council meeting(s) when the ordinances will be on the agenda.
Be prepared for possible opposition from your U.S. attorney's office. The most effective way to counter the opposition is to know your facts and to feel confident in your position. Focus on and familiarize yourself with the ways that counterterrorism policies have had the greatest impact on your community. Stories from local individuals who’ve been harmed by these policies are especially effective.
Also, be sure to remember your audience when debating with the opposition. Depending on the audience, it can be helpful to have "credible" figures, such as lawyers, professors, and politicians, defending your position.
Circulate a Community Petition
A petition signed by community members is an excellent way to demonstrate support for the ordinances. Write a petition and circulate it at the forum and other community events. You might also consider asking shoppers entering a local grocery store to sign your petition.
Gather all the completed petitions and deliver them at the city council meeting. Keep in mind that this is only effective if you have a significant number of signatures. If you haven’t been able to generate enough signatures to demonstrate broad community support, be sure to find a diverse (in age, economic background, race, religion, political affiliation, profession, etc.) group of people to speak on behalf of the ordinances at the city council meeting.
Initiate a Postcard Campaign
As part of your lobbying effort, consider a postcard campaign. At your forum, have a table with preprinted postcards to legislators for attendees to fill out with their home address and signature. If you can, provide the stamps.
Public Relations
After the ordinances have passed, send out a press release to local and national media outlets to inform your community and other communities of your success. Name your group as a resource for those trying to pass ordinances.
Consider documenting the process of passing your ordinance(s) in a book, and giving copies to local libraries and schools as a public record.
Tools:
- SPEAKING OUT To Protect Civil Rights and to Reduce Discrimination and Harassment in the Era of the U.S.A. PATRIOT ACT (PDF, 58 pages), the story of the Multnomah County (OR) Bill of Rights resolution
Help us make this web site a clearinghouse of information on Bill of Rights defense efforts nationwide. Contact us about efforts you are working on, others that you know about, or resources you’d like to share on our website.
