NU 610 Guidelines for Legislative Letter/Talking Points Assignment

The purpose of this assignment is to identify current legislative initiatives that impacts Advanced Nursing Practice and/or healthcare in general and to participate in a health-related legislative initiative with student’s legislators at the state or federal level.

The Legislative Letter/Talking Points is an assignment that has two parts – writing a professional business letter to one of your Legislators and the development of a talking points document to include with your letter. Be sure to review the guidelines for the Talking Points and Legislative Letter before you begin.

You will begin this assignment by identifying your Congressional districts and identifying your state and federal Legislators. Next, you will search for a bill in the current legislature, at the state or federal level, for a health-related legislative initiative. Use the resources listed in the course unit ‘lessons’ to assist you with this assignment. In addition, you will be required to search the literature to research the topic for data to include in your Talking Points.

Be sure to note that if you are writing your Senator or Representative in Washington, DC, you must address a bill for the current legislative session – the 113th Congress. If you choose to write your legislator that represents you at the federal level, be sure you choose a bill currently being discussed at the federal level. If you decide to write your legislator that represents you in your state capital, be sure you choose a bill currently being discussed in your state legislature. If your state legislature is not in session, you will need to select a federal bill.

Also, be sure to remember that you cannot ask your federal legislators – Senator in the U.S. Congress and/or Representative in the U.S. House of Representatives – to vote on a bill that your state legislators vote for in your state capitol. Your state legislators cannot vote on a bill that is under consideration in Washington, DC.

Your Senator (federal) cannot vote on a bill that is under consideration in the U.S. House of Representative and your Representative in the U.S. House of Representative cannot vote on a bill under consideration in the senate (the same is true for your state chambers).

Be sure to check the sponsors and co-sponsors of the bill to see if there is bipartisan support. Note what bills Democrats and/or Republicans support and which ones they co-sponsor. Check to see if your Senator/Representative is in line with the other Senators/Representatives in your state.

Check to see if there is a companion bill. If there is a companion bill, you will identify the bill by name/number in your letter. A companion bill is defined in the Legislative Glossary Terms posted in the Lessons.

You can ask your Senator to consider sponsoring a similar bill that is under consideration in the House of Representatives in the Senate Chamber if there is a bill before the House that you would like to see in the Senate or vice versa.

Guidelines for Legislative Letter

The purpose of the legislative letter is to become actively involved in the legislative process as it relates to health policy advocacy and the allocation of strategic resources. For this assignment, you will be asked to select a current legislative bill that impacts nursing, the patients that nurses care for, or a healthcare related issue.

Address the letter to your elected official using their correct title.

The letter should include only one subject and clearly identify it as such. Above the body of the letter, give the letter a title, such as Re: Bill Number 1234 – Ban on All Cell Phone Use by Drivers. Make this text bold.

Be sure to include the name and number of any companion bill in the other branch of the legislature, if applicable.

If the legislator you are writing is a sponsor/co-sponsor of the bill, you should thank them for supporting this bill, if you are in favor of it. If the legislator is not a sponsor, you should ask them to consider supporting the bill. Do a similar statement if you or your legislator opposes the bill.

You should identify yourself as a nurse in their district. Also, state that you are pursuing an advanced nursing education and indicate any other meaningful liaisons to organizations that are related to the bill and tie in those memberships to show your interest and expertise in the area of the bill (i.e. for a bill that would allow Medicare reimbursement for a type of cancer screening you could state, I have been a member of the American Cancer Society for five years and have become aware of how significant this type of screening would be to the patients in the Alabama. ).

You must make a statement of support or opposition. Next, you will give at least two general statements or reasons supporting your view. Data to support these statements should be in your Talking Points.

You should also give a short down home story related to the problem that the bill is addressing. In other words, relate a short case study of a patient that you have taken care of that would have benefited from this bill, or perhaps a family member or friend who might have had a better outcome if this legislation were in place. Do not make up any stories, however. You should always be truthful.

You should refer your legislator to the data in your Talking Points page that will accompany your letter. You should also indicate the legislator may contact you for any questions or information needed related to the bill.

Refer to the unit resources. The letter should be single spaced, written in first person, and be no more than 2 pages in length. Refer to grading rubric on last pages.

Guidelines for Talking Points

The purpose of the Talking Points is for you to become familiar with a current health care policy issue that will enable you to speak as an expert as it relates to a specific health issue.

Your talking points should zero in on the issue addressed in the bill and should include bullets as defined on the grading rubric. All politics are local, so you must be able to point out why your particular legislator should sponsor the bill to help his/her own constituents.

The Talking Points document is single spaced and cannot exceed one page. You should include the bill name and number, and a brief description of the bill, followed by 6-8 talking points which includes data specific to $, %, #’s, etc. Use headings to introduce/identify content of each bullet/point (for example: national data, regional data, etc. – see rubric).

Each talking point must have a different/separate reference cited for each talking point. If you have 6 bullets, you need 6 references listed on reference list. References must be timely.

You must include on a separate page (for the instructor only – not for sending to your legislator) an APA formatted reference list.

Adhere to all APA formatting with the exception of single line spacing the talking points document. The assignment requires that you have a running head and page number for all pages, even though when you send to your Legislator you will remove the title page, running head and page numbers.

The assignment includes a title page, legislative letter, talking points document and a reference page, followed by merged turnitin report (in this order), into a single pdf document for submission. Be sure to name your document per the course file naming policy (see course syllabi).

Papers must be submitted to turnitin. Be careful in paraphrasing your talking points information. There will be the opportunity to resubmit revisions of the paper to turnitin.com. The final turnitin report is to be saved as a pdf document and merged with the paper (in other words, you will be submitting one document). You can expect names/addresses of legislatures and name/number of bills to be flagged, and this is OK.

Please upload your assignment into the ‘Assignment’. If assignment is not merged, submitted as a pdf, or named correctly, you will be notified via email and will have 48 hours to resubmit correctly (after 48 hours pass, deductions will be made for late submission).

The grading rubric is on the last pages following the assignment guidelines.

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