You, goodly knight, and the constituents of your state Representative and state Senator, have been solemnly charged with a valiant quest!
As citizens you are responsible for being active members of your state legislative district. Your efforts to influence the 2 state legislative members who carry your banner, to get them to affirm that a state budget is a moral document, and to compel them to focus and find the recurring revenues, will no doubt help save the “kingdom” of Oklahoma.
Yes, there be dragons ahead but take heart! The Good news is there are lots of ways to do a budget and tax advocacy quest.
Better news! You are not alone – you can join with other Together OK members in your districts as an adventuring team.
Best news! I am humbly on your team as well, so I’ll keep illuminating some helpful wizards and dangerous dragons you may encounter along the way.
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This is your quest! Dragons, wizards, and all.
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Who is with you?
Come hither, take heed, and I shall tell ye the tale…
This is your quest! Dragons, wizards, and all.
Quest option #1: Ask your legislators, or their assistant, when they can meet with you, and a few of your fellow constituents in a Town Hall meeting! What better way to talk about the revenue options?
- Town Halls help legislators get some Face-to-Face time with many constituents at once so shouldn’t yours be hosting one to talk about revenue options during this budget crisis? Some legislators prefer constituent breakfast briefings, office hours at the Capitol, or small group coffee dates back in your district. All of these options are acceptable but they NEED to meet with you and your fellow constituents! How will they know how to best represent you if they don’t have a Town Hall? Ask what they already have planned, when they can attend one if constituents need to plan one, and let me know using this Town Halls form so I can connect you with your fellow constituents.
Quest option #2: If you can’t meet with them, ask one of your district teammates to meet with them.
- Perchance you have social anxiety, maybe you’ve burnt your bridges with your 2 legislators, maybe you’re just plain too busy to set aside this time. ALL of those are valid reasons to not meet face-to-face for Face-to-Face February, but they don’t exclude you from asking a fellow constituent to go on your behalf. You can share this blog post at the very least. You are on this quest with us and we’d be worse off without you!
Who is with you?
- There are people getting our advocacy alerts in every district in the state. Fill out this form if you’d like me to help connect you to other advocates near you.
- Two people plus a plan equals power so connect with another person who is in your part of the state. We’ve even created a Slack channel for each and every district, so you can easily connect with others in your district online to discuss those face-to-face meetings I mentioned above.
- We also have Outreach, Events, Communications, and Research teams where you can connect with others all over the state to talk about projects that can help us all! Just fill out this form if you haven’t already and we’ll make sure to get you connected.
We have all the tools you need on our TOK website but, if you see something is missing or if you forget how to find or do something, just ask your fellow TOK teammates. We are on this quest together so be strong, be brave, be willing to do your part, and recruit others! Together we have already slain some dragons in this session so keep it up!
Fare thee well and may we meet again upon the morrow in Face-to-Face February and beyond!
-Lady Kara-Joy of the Knights of the Better Budget
