Greetings and welcome to the column! I hope this communique finds you all well. I am sure it will find you busy providing the vital public services our citizens depend on every day.
As you know, the 68th ND State Legislature is working steadily to complete its work before its eighty-day session expires. Your ND United lobby team has been at the Capitol every day making sure that your voice is heard on myriad issues important to our members and their families. We began the session tracking 125 bills. That means sitting through many hearings and writing and delivering testimony on a variety of bills. We do it because we know what you know: every decision that impacts your workspace is a political decision made at the federal, state, or local level. It is important that our legislators understand how their decisions impact the lives of all our public servants.
As I write this on the eve of Crossover, when bills from one chamber move to the other, it is clear that there is still much work to before the legislature adjourns sine die. Among the difficult decisions yet to be made are salary increases for public employees, K-12 education funding, whether to continue or close the defined benefit retirement plan administered by PERS, higher education funding, as well as decisions on myriad culture war issues. All of these issues will have a direct or indirect impact on our members and our society, so it is eminently important that we make our voices heard.
That’s where you come in! You are incredibly important to the work we do on behalf of all of our members at the Capitol. We know from our outstanding NDU Lobby Day engagements that legislators value your opinion and want to hear from you. You may not know that hundreds of our members have been contacting their legislators on the important issues before them on a regular basis. You can, and should, too.
We urge you to become an ND United Activist Member. Our outstanding team will make sure you have all the information you need on the important issues that matter most to you. In addition, you can join us on our twice monthly Legislative Session Organizing call. At these informative meetings, we will give you up to the minute news on the issues of the day as well as some behind the scenes insight on how the sausage gets made in Bismarck.
Thanks for your good work and for all you do in service of others.
