01/08/18 - Missouri Mondays - Learn how to listen and track what is happening in Jefferson City!

Weekly Update: Last week the Missouri legislature began the 2018 session. We had a surprise resignation of Senator Ryan Silvey, who was appointed and confirmed to the Public Service Commision. This means Missouri will be in for another special election to replace another Senator.

Your Missouri Monday this week is actually a two-part call to action. If you haven’t already reached out to your elected officials, we want you to do so. Click HERE to write your state elected officials because it is important to have those introductions to start to build the relationship with your Representative and Senator. After they talk to you a few times, it shows them that you are involved and a concerned constituent who pays attention!

Secondly, Wednesday, January 10th, Governor Greitens will deliver his State of the State address at 7 PM. You can live stream the address at https://www.mo.gov/. Our call to action this week is for you to listen in.

We would like to give you a few tips on how to listen and track what is happening in Jefferson City. In the next few weeks, we will be releasing an Indivisible Missouri Guide that will go into more detail on how you can track bills, engage with your elected officials, testify on bills and much more!

How you get involved at home:

Listen to live debate Tuesdays-Thursdays after 10 AM!

House live debate: http://chamber.house.mo.gov/housechamber

Senate live debate: http://chamber.senate.mo.gov/SenateChamber

Why this is important: We encourage you to listen in to your elected officials debating bills on the floor of the House or Senate. It is interesting to hear our elected officials at work, and it allows you to bring up something you heard on the floor when you contact your state officials. Plus you never know what interesting conversations you might hear on either floor.

How will I know what they are talking about?

We can’t guarantee you will always make sense of what our legislators are saying on the floor. For example, last week we heard a Senator say, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened,” when we turned on the feed; but those “they said what?” moments are part of the charm of listening in to your elected officials at work. While you are listening, you can track bills that they are discussing by visiting the following sites:

House bills: http://www.house.mo.gov/LegislationSP.aspx

Senate bills: http://www.senate.mo.gov/18info/BTS_Web/BillList.aspx?SessionType=R

You can search for bills by number, but if you don’t catch what bill they are debating, you can look up the daily schedule to see what bills are being discussed.

To see the daily schedule you can look at http://www.house.mo.gov/Session.aspx for the House and http://www.senate.mo.gov/18info/pdf-cal/cal.htm for the Senate.

What if I can’t tune in, but I want to know what my elected officials tackled that day?

If you want to see what they completed the day before or where a bill is in the process, you can:

Click on the House Actions section of the House site: http://www.house.mo.gov/LegislationSP.aspx?year=2018&code=R%20&category=houseactions

View the daily actions on the Senate side: http://www.senate.mo.gov/18info/BTS_Web/ActionDates.aspx?SessionType=R.

We hope you try out your mini-guide lesson for this week and get familiar with the state sites. Be on the lookout for our Missouri Indivisible Guide for a more detailed look at how to get involved in your state legislature!

This week will be a full week in Jefferson City, and we will be ready to start making calls and visits. Don’t forget to RSVP to our “Lobby Your Legislator Days!” in January and February.