Legislative
How to Get Involved

Contacting your legislators is one of the most effective ways of ensuring that your views are heard, and of encouraging them to take action. To find out who your representatives are, as well as to access their current contact information, please visit the website for Project Vote Smart, http://vote-smart.org. For your convenience, we have also included below suggestions on how to effectively present your views to your elected officials:

Delivering your Message
Writing Your Elected Representative
Meeting with your Elected Representative
Presenting Information to your Elected Officials
Writing a Letter to the Editor

During the session each legislator is allowed to introduce five bills, although the Speaker of the House or the President of the Senate may allow a legislator to introduce a late bill. The Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate assign a bill to one or more committees for a hearing. At the hearing, proponents and opponents testify about the bill before a group of legislators. The bill may be amended, but if it passes in the committee, it goes to the entire House or Senate for votes and further amendments, if any. If the bill passes the “floor” votes it is then sent to the other chamber to begin the process again. It will be heard in another committee and go to the floor if it passes out of that other committee.

You may also want to refer to a glossary of legislative terms. For more information click on http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/leg_dir/lcsstaff/StaffInfo/definitions.htm.

Members of the public are often in the Statehouse to watch the proceedings, to testify about a particular bill or to meet with their legislators. Public participation in the committee hearings is welcomed. There are some limitations and some procedures you should know before you testify. The hearings are listed in the chamber’s calendar for each day. You need to have the bill’s number and to check the calendar for when and where the bill should be heard. Please note that sometimes the location and date are changed because of the size of the group or interested parties or to accommodate the legislators’ other commitments. Read more information on how you can get involved.

If you want to receive updates on the work being done as we plan for the next legislative session and action alerts about legislation, sign up here.