Advocates and Council staff met in a State Capitol hearing room to strategize about their legislator meetings.
Public policy advocacy has been a cornerstone of the Council’s mission since our founding over 70 years ago. In May we continued that mission with our annual Advocacy Days event, both virtually and in-person at the State Capitol in Madison. Participants were able to meet with their legislators to advocate for issues that are important to them and share their own story about why it matters.
Lynn Olson of Madison first attended our virtual session before joining us at the Capitol to talk to her state senator, Kelda Roys. Lynn has never met with legislators before, but said that she was able to begin building a relationship while discussing issues that are important to her. Lynn says she felt like she made a real difference. “The meeting was fantastic!” Lynn says. “She was very receptive to everything that I had. I was really well informed by the Council going in. We had a briefing before I went into the meeting that was invaluable in helping me to direct the conversation.”
Peter Sherrill of Door County had some prior advocacy experience when he volunteered with the state’s Civil Air Patrol. In recent years as he lost his vision, he has relied on his wife Carrie to get him anywhere he needs to go. Living in rural Kolberg, he says he has no other options. “Without her, I would not be able to live where I live,” Peter says. “My town doesn’t even have a post office. It’s a transportation desert.” Peter was able to sit down separately with each of his state legislators, Rep. Joel Kitchens and Sen. André Jacques, and be heard about the issue. After the event, he sent them a short thank you email to let them know that the meeting was important. “Since I lost my eyesight, I’ve had my world shrink a lot,” Peter says. “Advocacy gives me something I can do that is not only good for me, but good for other folks as well.”
Advocate Peter Sherrill met with his representative in the State Assembly, Joel Kitchens, to discuss transportation barriers and other budget issues.
Advocacy Days is also a chance for the Council to meet with lawmakers. Council Executive Director Denise Jess, a seasoned advocate, took the opportunity to meet with several legislators during the event. “I was able to have great conversations with lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle about a variety of really important issues,” Denise says. “By combining personal experience with facts and statistics, we were able to make progress on these issues.”
Legislators are in the midst of state budget deliberations. The budget is currently with the legislature’s Joint Finance Committee, which is in charge of crafting the initial budget bill. Once they have drafted the bill, it will go to both the state Senate and Assembly for a vote. Each house must pass an identical version of the bill. Once they have done so, it goes to the Governor for his final approval sometime this summer. Before signing the bill, the Governor may make changes by wielding his considerable line-item veto power.
The Council will continue to advocate for our budget and legislative priorities throughout the budget process and beyond. Transportation remains one of our top priority issues. As the budget moves through the Legislature, we will continue to advocate for more funding for transportation options in both urban and rural parts of Wisconsin. Particularly in rural areas of the state, there are few transportation options available for people with vision loss. Increased funding for Specialized Transportation Programs for People with Disabilities and Older Adults would help ensure that people can get where they need to go regardless of where they live.
While not included in this year’s state budget discussions, Advocacy Days also gave us the opportunity to talk with lawmakers about the importance of website accessibility. Every Wisconsin resident deserves full access to state government information, but there are still state websites that are not designed for users of access technology. The Department of Administration has been working to issue standards on government website accessibility, but some sites, such as the State Legislature’s, still fall short of accessibility standards.
Last year, a bill was introduced to make all State of Wisconsin websites fully accessible, but it did not make it out of committee. We will continue to work with lawmakers to reintroduce the bill after the budget process concludes.
These are just two of the Council’s legislative priorities. You can find all of them on the Advocacy page of our website.
Now is the perfect time to reach out to your legislators to advocate for the issues that are important to you! Sharing your story with them is a great way to start building a relationship with those who represent you. If you choose to reach out to them by email, be sure to mention that you are a constituent in the subject line, as some lawmakers will only read constituent messages.
If you were unable to attend this year’s Advocacy Days but still want to build your advocacy skills, the Council’s Advocacy Discussion Group meets every other month to empower people with vision loss to become effective advocates at both the local and state levels. The next meeting is July 16, and you can find more information at WCBlind.org/Council-Events/Advocacy-Discussion-Group.
