Update 8/1/2023

The State Legislative Committees are where the rubber hits the road.   This is the end goal of everything else we are doing.    This is the committee that organizes approaching the legislators and asking them to write the bills, and then helping your legislator to push the bills through the legislative process.

HOA issues, are NON-PARTISAN issues. Do not bring up ANY other issues on any of the Social Media sites or in any conversation related to HOA. Other political issues will only divide the group.

Your goal is to get both Republican and Democrat legislators to write bills for you, get legislators from both parties to co-sponsor the bill and the rest to support it. One of our legislators wrote a bill that encompassed most of our Proposed Legislative Changes. Another said it was a better strategy to write one bill for each issue as it was easier to explain on concept at a time. You might discuss both with your legislators that agree to write bills.

The list of tasks below are NOT the duty of the Chair(s), they are the duty of the entire committee. 

Chairs are free to bring on other Co-Chairs and it is a suggested practice to do so.

Remember we don’t expect more than 15 minutes a day from any individual unless they choose to do more.  Don’t burn yourself out by trying to do too much yourself.

Post on the main HRLNG Facebook page asking for others to help with these tasks.   Also post, message, email and call people in your State Community Chat to join your committee and help.

Complete the following tasks:

• Check your current laws to determine which of the Proposed Legislation is already in the law.
• Make sure that the law really says what we are asking for in the Proposed Legislation.  Some laws sound similar but are not really doing the same thing.
• Remove items that are already in your laws from your version of the Proposed Legislation and send that to me to post in your State Legislative page on the HRLNG Website.
• As you complete each list, or sample letter below, send them to me so I can post the on your State Legislative page.
• Find all your State legislator’s names, email addresses, phone numbers, district number and their assistants names and email addresses. Create a list in Word or equivalent software.
• Create a list with only the emails of the legislators followed by the emails only of their assistants, divided into house and senate, so that those email addresses may be cut and pasted into emails to send to the legislators.
• Create the email only lists for all the legislators as well as individual lists for each committee.
• Write sample letters to your district legislators:
  • One to ask for an appointment to discuss the HOA problems and your Proposed legislation.
  • One for convincing them to write a bill including the Proposed Legislation and requesting an appointment and including the Proposed Legislation.
  • One to support the bill that other Legislators have written for you and to meet, in person, by phone or zoom, to discuss.
• Call your State Government and ask:
  • which of the committees would handle this type of bill in the Senate and the House.
  • what other committees you would need to influence like the Rules Committee or Finance Committees.
  • which legislative members are in those committees and copy from the master list into separate lists for each of those committees.  Both the full list and the email only list.
• Create a list of all the members of each Senate and House committee that will be involved by cutting and pasting from the total legislator list.
• Create an email only list for each of the Senate and House committees that would be involved.
• Contact your District legislators and discuss your Proposed Legislation with them and ask the other HRLNG members of your State to do the same.
  • Be very friendly with the assistants of the legislators and invest some time explaining to them why these bills are important. They will help you if you convince the legislators and will greatly influence the legislators.
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  • Ask the assistants to help you get appointments with the legislators.
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  • They will normally want to give you 15 minutes. Explain that you cant cover this information in 15 minutes and ask for 1 hour.
  • Let them know that you have 17 Proposed Legislative Changes with the most important being penalties in the law for Board Members that violate the law and you need more like 1 hour.
    
    
  • Be prepared to discuss the Proposed Legislation and Be prepared to explain why each of the items are important and to answer their objections.
  • Ask if they will write a bill to add these to the law.
  • Follow up, follow up, follow up.
• Once the bill is written, ask all the HRLNG members of your State to write Thank You letters to your legislators that wrote the bills.
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• Attempt to get both Representatives and Senators to write bills saying the same thing in BOTH the House and Senate bills. This gives you twice as many opportunities to talk directly to the legislators and it looks better that similar ideas are being presented by both houses.
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• It doesn’t matter whether you are personally Republican or Democrat. Both Republicans and Democrats have written bills for us.   Don’t bring this up, and don’t talk about ANY other political issues in any way.
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• The most important rule; keep notes on your conversations with each legislator and follow up, follow up, follow up. Never give up!
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• Teach others HRLNG members of your State to do the same.
  
• Ask all the HRLNG members of your State to send copies of the bill to all your legislators and everyone to call their legislators to discuss the bill and ask your legislators to support the bill.  Be sure to ask then IF THEY WILL SUPPORT THE BILL.  If not, why not.  Be prepared to answer objections.
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• Ask everyone to follow up, follow up, follow up.
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• Ask at least TWO of your most responsible and reliable members to find out how to find when the bills are given to the legislators, and track when and where they will be discussed.
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• Track the bill as they go through the committees and ask all your HRLNG State Members to write emails to support the bills to all the committee members and join the committee meetings where the bills are scheduled to be discussed either in person or by Zoom.
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• Search for all legislation with the terms HOA, COA, CIC, Homeowner, Condo, Community, POA, Association. If the are bills about HOAs, check them out and see if they are good or bad. Write emails to your legislators asking them to defeat or amend the bill to make it good for Homeowners and ideally align with our Proposed Legislation.

Got Questions??

Ask your Legislative Committee Chair or Patrick Johansen through Messenger or Patrick@PK80.com