Sac Central Delegation: January 2021

Friday, January 22, 2021

UPDATED: Sac Central Delegation Bulletin #16: Bill Deadlines, Court Info, and Making Time for the News

Hi all! I have a couple of quick updates and reminders for you:

1.) If you haven't yet, please register for tomorrow's webinar. It should be fun and valuable and applicable beyond Y&G.

2.)MEETING DAY CHANGE: this week, we're going to have an all-Coalition meeting on Thursday, January 28 instead of our usually Wednesday meeting. We'll kick off our next module on Campaigns & Elections, and have a chance to interact with some of our CapCo brothers and sisters from Gold Country and El Dorado.

The zoom link is different. Check your email for the updated link! Officers should log on at 6pm and everyone else at 6:30.

If you have a conflict and you can't make it, that's okay. We'll record the curriculum component so you can catch up later. That said, if you don't have a conflict, you should be there!

3.) Draft bills have been returned via google classroom. Though the regional deadline for final bill drafts is Feb 8 - Your deadline is Sunday, January 31. Your bills are in good shape and don't need a ton of work. A call with your fellow Firm members should help you wrap things up!

Don't forget to review the rest of this week's bulletin, below. Let me know if you have any questions!

Don't forget about the news: we started the program year discussing media literacy. Put those skills to work by reading the news daily. Routh & Tumble is a great news aggregator site that compiles top California headlines on a variety of topics. Start the new year with a new habit of checking it out daily. Also, for those who would like to keep the PolicyFest fun going by reading about the top challenges that lie ahead for California, check out the newly released report "California's Future" by the Public Policy Institute of California. Do you agree or disagree with what they say are the biggest things we need to tackle as a state?

January 26 Webinar: Speak Your Truth with 916 Ink: Join us on January 26 at "SPEAK YOUR TRUTH," a webinar presented by 916 Ink. Embrace creativity and your unique voice when writing or speaking about the issues most important to YOU. Learn skills to help you not just with upcoming campaign, bill presentations, or lobbying efforts, but also with college applications, job interviews, cover letters, and more! Register today!

Courts Information: You can view your case and role assignment on the Public Roster(first tab, "Courts" view). After you look up your case and role, join the Courts Google Classroom and begin reviewing your case materials.

Program Area To-Dos: Have you checked out this document to make sure you're taking care of things between conferences?

Draft Bills Due Sunday: Firms are responsible for drafting bill language for their introduced bills, however, Legislative authors are *strongly encouraged* to assist with the process. Legislators should reach out to the Firm Principal for their chosen bill(s) to make sure they'll meet the deadline. For Legislator-written proposals, Legislators are responsible for drafting language. A Bill assignment to submit language is available in both the Legislator and Firm Principal Google Classrooms. View a sample bill template here. The bill drafting webinar can be viewed here. Slides available here. Ask for help if you need it! Remember: it's okay to scale back your ideas - to focus them into something manageable. Stay in contact with your Legislator-Authors and keep them up-to-date and the whys and whats of any changes to keep your bill manageable. Policy change is seldom sweeping - it's usually incremental, slow, methodical, and time-consuming. And that's okay. It usually ends up better, more comprehensive, and longer-lasting.

Meeting Link: We'll have our regular meeting this Wednesday. Officers at 6:15~~, Everyone else at 6:30p. See Email for link.~~

CapCo Meeting this week: Instead of meeting on Wednesday, we'll meet on Thursday with Eldo and GoldCo. Meeting Link: see email. Officers at 6pm, everyone at 6:30pm.

REMINDERS

Op-Ed Contest: Win yourself a prize by trying your hand at Op-Ed writing. Use the tips available from the Op-Ed Project to write an op-ed on a topic that's timely and important to you and you may find yourself with a sweet Starbucks card. Entries must be received by 11:59pm on Friday, February 19, 2021 via bit.ly/norcaloped. Entries should be in the form of an op-ed article, of the kinds that appear in newspapers. The op-ed may concern any issue in California public policy or public affairs, broadly defined. Only current NorCal Y&G Delegates are eligible to participate. Entries may be no longer than 750 words. Entries must have been written after January 1, 2021 and may be simultaneous submitted for publication to newspapers. Entries will be judged by a panel of program staff. Top 3 finishers will be shared on the NorCal Y&G IG account.

Advocacy in Action Module: If you haven't yet, watch this video or check out the slides for Advocacy in Action. Most of you will be producing some of these items between now and the end of the program year.

Pitch Session Feedback: Legislator evaluations of bill pitches are available here. Check out average criteria scores and substance and style feedback for each proposal. The proposal roster also includes Legislative Counsel feedback where needed. Use this information to improve your bill as move forward in the process.

Join Slack: All delegates have now been added to slack. Accept the invitation and come say hi to your fellow delegates. This is your virtual town-square where you can connect about bill introductions and support, chat about policy, ask questions about program area assignments, and more. But it's only useful if you're there!

Get Social: Are you on Instagram? Follow our delegation - @sacyandg - and the NorCal Y&G account - @norcalyg for all the latest on conferences and program stuff. (Follow our sister delegations, too: @eldoyandg and @goldcountrymlc) No need to join Instagram if you're not already on Instagram, of course.

Helpful Links:

Missed a bulletin?
Looking for forms or handouts?

Keep up on daily California news headlines

Mark your calendars:

Sunday, January 24 - Draft Bill Deadline

Tuesday, January 26 - Speak Your Truth: Public Speaking and Creative Writing Webinar

Wednesday, Jan 27 - No meeting

Thursday, Jan 28 - All-CapCo Meeting

Sunday, Jan 31 - Sac Central Final Bill Language Deadline

Sunday, February 28 - Conference 4

Sat-Sun, March 6-7 - Final Conference Weekend

Friday, January 15, 2021

Sac Central Delegation Bulletin #15: In which we flip the classroom

“Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We're going to try something new this week. Since we changed up last week's meeting and didn't get to our curriculum module - let's try an experiment. We're going to flip-the-classroom, a concept where the lesson stuff gets done outside the "classroom." Watch this video in which I'll cover last week and this week's curriculum module, Advocacy in Action. Do that, and we're clear out the agenda to leave more room for mock debates and sharing your possible op-ed topic (see details below). The video is about 30 minutes long. This module gets you ready for the rest of the program year (and for life!) by teaching you about the documents you'll be creating or working with others to create in the program. Have questions after watching? Ask in GroupMe or bring to the meeting next week.

Find an Op-Ed for Next Week's Meeting If you watched the video (if? of course you did), you learned about Op-Eds. Spend some time this weekend checking out the Opinion section of your favorite newspaper (you have a favorite newspaper, don't you?). Check out the Sac Bee, New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, LA Times, CalMatters, etc, and look for an op-ed that you find interesting or persuasive (or even not persuasive to you). At the next meeting, we'll share what op-eds we found and take a look at their structure and what makes them persuasive (or not!). (PS: broadcast news can feature op-eds also.)

Bill Introduction Deadline - Extended to Saturday Legislators have until Saturday, Jan 16 to introduce their bill(s). That means Advocacy Firms need to lock down a bill author to introduce their proposal, so it has a shot at making it to the Governor! Here's the process. Legislators and Advocates should read this info.

Please be aware of the following upcoming Bill Deadlines:

-January 24: Draft bill language due (via Google Classroom)

-February 1: Draft bills returned

-February 8: Final bills due (via Google Classroom)

-February 16: Committee Chairs post Feb 28 hearing agendas

-February 28: Subcommittee hearings

Bill Drafting Information

Firms are responsible for drafting bill language for their introduced bills, however, Legislative authors are *strongly encouraged* to assist with the process. For Legislator-written proposals, Legislators are responsible for drafting language. A Bill assignment to submit language is available in both the Legislator and Firm Principal Google Classrooms. View a sample bill template here.

Bill Drafting Webinar

We reviewed this information before Winter Break, but if you need a refresher on writing your actual bill language if your bill is introduced, join us on Tuesday, January 19 at 6pm for bill drafting info. Open to all delegates and advisors. This is a great opportunity to ensure Firms are on the right track to meeting their January 24 draft bill deadline with a correctly written bill. See email for link.

Pitch Session Feedback

Legislator evaluations of bill pitches are available here. Check out average criteria scores and substance and style feedback for each proposal. The proposal roster also includes Legislative Counsel feedback where needed. Use this information to improve your bill as move forward in the process.

Op-Ed Contest

Win yourself a prize by trying your hand at Op-Ed writing. Use the tips available from the Op-Ed Project to write an op-ed on a topic that's timely and important to you and you may find yourself with a sweet Starbucks card.

Entries must be received by 11:59pm on Friday, February 19, 2021 via bit.ly/norcaloped
Entries should be in the form of an op-ed article, of the kinds that appear in newspapers.
The op-ed may concern any issue in California public policy or public affairs, broadly defined.
Only current NorCal Y&G Delegates are eligible to participate
Entries may be no longer than 750 words
Entries must have been written after January 1, 2021 and may be simultaneous submitted for publication to newspapers
Entries will be judged by a panel of program staff
Top 3 finishers will be shared on the NorCal Y&G IG account

Meeting Link: We'll have our regular meeting this Wednesday. Officers at 6:15, Everyone else at 6:30p. See email for link.

REMINDERS

Program Bulletin: You should have received the post-conference program bulletin, but just in case, here you go. This bulletin will seem short because you need to click through and read that one. It has all the post-con program area info you need to read including how to reach out to Legislators/Firms about bill introductions.