Letter to the Legislator (20 percent of final grade)

Assignment Information

This assignment provides you with the opportunity to use a specific political advocacy strategy: communication with a legislator via a letter. Expressing your support or lack of support for proposed legislation (bills) can be a powerful way to speak up about an issue. In this assignment, you will identify a proposed bill and voice your support for, or argument for not, passing that particular bill.

Completion of this assignment will demonstrate your achievement of the following course outcomes:

• describe the impact of health care policies on nursing practice and health care work environments to determine the financial and regulatory influences on patient care
• evaluate the political advocacy process to identify opportunities for nursing professional involvement
• delineate strategies that nurses can use to engage in advocacy for health care policy to support equity, access, affordability, and social justice for consumers and in support of the nursing profession

Assignment Guidelines

1. Select a piece of legislation proposed either in your state or at the national level.
2. Identify your state representative at the level of the bill—this will be either your state, House of Representatives, or Senate representative, depending on the bill that you selected.
3. Conduct a literature review to identify evidence pertaining to the issue addressed in the bill. Find at least three sources.
4. Develop a letter to send to your state legislator. This letter should integrate the evidence supporting your position. The following websites offer templates, examples, and/or guidelines for letters to legislators that you may want to consider.
   1. https://www.ncsbn.org/APRN_formletter_Legislator_web.pdf
   2. http://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/how-write-your-402285.html

Grading Criteria

Follow these guidelines in writing your letter.

1. Write the letter in a business letter format.
2. Include the following:
   1. introduction of self and professional position
   2. overview of the bill you want to address
   3. clear argument in support of or not in support of the bill
   4. integration of evidence from scholarly literature to support your position
   5. legal name, credentials, and contact information
3. Proofread the letter so that it is free of grammatical, spelling, and syntax errors.