Getting Started
It’s important to be proactive rather than reactive; the sooner you can be involved in the policy process, the better. You don’t want to wait until the news hits the media. Oftentimes, it’ll be too late to effectively take action. You want to be at the table when the policies are being discussed or even be quoted in the news story where they’re being announced.
Identify What Matters to You
Find an issue that is impacting you and begin educating yourself. The internet is full of misinformation, so the best approach to education is connecting with those knowledgeable on the topic. Find an organization that is devoted to your concern and reach out to them for reliable information. Also consider volunteering some time with that organization to see how they work and what they’re doing to address your concern.
How to Find Reliable Information and Vet an Information Source
7 Tips on how to Spot Fake News
Source: Consider the source.
Is it legitimate? Are there supporting sources? Does the research cited even exist? For example, in 2015 Donald Trump tweeted an infographic of racially inflammatory data based on the so-called Crime Statistics Bureau of San Francisco. Sounds official? “That doesn’t exist,” … “It originated with a White supremacist.”
Headline: Read beyond the headline.
Too often we share info before we’ve even read the article.
Author: Check the author.
Do they have a legitimate bio?
Date: Check the article published date.
When was the article written? Often old or already discredited news is spun as new.
Satire: Check the “About” page of the website.
Is the article a joke or a satire piece? The entire site could be satire.
Biases: Check yours!
We want to believe what we already may think we know.
Experts: Ask the experts.
Congressional Quarterly’s CQ Researcher, for example, gives in-depth analysis of news topics and covers many sides of an issue. That information can help you decide if what you are reading is way out of line with reality.
Working Together
When doing research it’s important to remember to do your best listening, learning, and supporting the people most impacted by an issue, especially if you are coming from a place of privilege. Avoid the temptation to work in silo and devise your own policy solution, without engaging the community at large.
Building on each other's strengths is key. Make sure the people you are working with have expertise in areas you don’t. This is also an effective way of doing advocacy because a dedicated group of people can divide up labor more efficiently and effectively than if you are doing work by yourself.
A typical advocacy group will have several of the following roles: people focused on tracking bills as they move through the legislative process, others building relationships with supportive elected officials, and many more developing policy and legal strategy, leading communications, organizing with impacted communities, and generating support from constituents of key decision-makers.
Volunteer and Get Involved
We encourage you to follow some of the bigger coalitions by signing up for email newsletters and liking them on social media. They’ll tip you off to key moments for taking action.
If you’re looking for a community to support and motivate you, you’re always welcome at Third City Coalition. That’s why we’re here. We also provide a platform for you to connect with bigger organizations beyond just receiving action alerts. Sign up for the Third City Mailing List to stay connected.
The Policymaking Process
Stockton City Hall
At the federal and state level there are 3 branches of government:
Legislative—Makes laws
Executive—Carries out laws
Judicial—Evaluates laws
In general, the city government has basic jobs to do: ensure public safety, provide safe water and decent infrastructure. The City of Stockton operates slightly differently than our federal and state governments. The City of Stockton is a City Charter (municipal constitution) with a City Council-Manager form of government.
Under a Council-Manager government (also known as weak or ceremonial mayor system), the mayor serves as an equal with the city council members and executive functions of the city are performed by a city manager. This differs from a Mayor-Council government (also known as a strong mayor system), where the mayor has significantly more authority and may be responsible for more administrative and management duties.
The City Council consists of a Mayor, elected by all City voters, and six Councilmembers, elected to represent separate districts in the City. The Mayor is full-time and Councilmembers are part-time.
The Council establishes city policies, ordinances, contracts, and agreements; approves the City's annual budget; and appoints four positions:
City Departments are under the direction of the City Manager.
The City Council holds public meetings on Tuesday evenings, twice a month, in the City Council Chambers at City Hall. The Council also holds special meetings and committee meetings, which are open to the public. Councilmembers serve on several working committees.
Public meetings allow for the council to hear how the general public is responding to certain policy proposals and current legislation. There is often time at these meetings to make a public comment so the council can hear your concerns about your community.
Council committees are an essential part of the legislative process. Made up of Council members, these working committees oversee local governmental operations, identify issues suitable for legislative review, gather and evaluate information, and recommend courses of action to the City Council. By considering and reporting on a specific policy, committees help to set the City Council’s agenda.
When a working committee decides to consider a measure, it usually takes four actions.
The committee requests written comments from relevant stakeholders and community members.
Hearings are held to gather additional information and views from non-committee experts.
The committee works to perfect the measure by amending the measure or policy proposal.
Once the language is agreed upon, the committee sends the measure back to the City Council. Often it also provides a report that describes the purpose of the measure.
Council Policies
As the legislative body of the City of Stockton, the City Council is charged with establishing policies to guide the various municipal functions of the City and, where necessary, to establish procedures for those functions. Regulatory policies established by the City Council are typically adopted by ordinance and included in the Municipal Code.
Other policies also are established that do not require adoption by ordinance. These policy statements, adopted by resolution of the City Council, are maintained and indexed in the same database that contains the following documents:
Stockton Municipal Code (SMC)
Stockton City Charter
Civil Service Rules and Regulations for Miscellaneous Employees
Civil Service Rules and Regulations for Police and Fire Employees
Policy: Idea to Enactment
Generally, see the policymaking flowchart below designed by StateScape to see the process from idea to enactment.
Idea to Enactment
IDEA
An idea for a new ordinance may originate from several different sources:
A local politician’s initiative
Private citizen concerns through public forums or a petition
In response to state or federal actions
Council, board, or committee meetings
INTRODUCTION
After the idea for a new ordinance is drafted into a proposal, it may be introduced by the city council or a specialized committee depending on where the idea originated. Typically, a proposed ordinance moves between the city council and various boards, commissions, and committees multiple times.
CITY COUNCIL + SPECIALIZED COMMITTEES
The city council discusses the public merits of a proposed ordinance, taking into consideration committee findings as well as public comments.
Specialized committees research and report their findings, and make recommendations on the proposed ordinance to the city council.
READINGS + PUBLIC HEARINGS
A proposed ordinance is usually read each time it goes before the city council. In addition, local governments may be bound to hold at least on public hearing, and oftentimes several. This is to give the public a formal opportunity to comment on the proposed ordinance.
VOTING + ENACTMENT
After public hearings and final discussions, the city council votes on the proposed ordinance. In some localities, the ordinance must then be approved by the mayor. After final approval, the ordinance is officially adopted, and takes effect based on the process of the specific locality.
Understanding and Moving Policymakers
Stockton City Council Meeting
Reading the Political Landscape
While local government is primarily governed by elected officials, civil servants and appointed officials wield significant power too. To be effective, it’s critical to understand that each type of decision-maker has their own set of motivations, incentives, and constraints. What works to move a City Councilmember is not something that will change a civil servant’s recommendation. Elected officials are theoretically the most susceptible to input and pressure from the public, so this guide focuses principally on them.
Elected officials, as a general rule, prioritize getting reelected as their main goal. They want to look good to constituents, donors, and powerbrokers and avoid looking bad as much as possible. Some lean more progressive and others more conservative. Some are known for their courage and others for taking the path of least resistance. For that reason, it helps to get to know them each as individuals, to learn about what they care about personally and politically, the people and organizations that are most influential in their decision-making, and so on.
When garnering support from a public official it’s important for you to obtain firm, specific commitments and ideally to get them made in public, whether in front of the media, large assemblies of people, or in the legislative debates. Praise them when they do the right thing and critique their actions when they go astray. Before going full out attacking officials, evaluate whether or not you’ll ultimately need their vote to win your policy. If you act publicly as if they’re irredeemable, they’re not going to see the point in even trying to get on your good side.
The most powerful tactics in the world won’t be effective unless they’re part of a coherent strategy.
Contacting Elected Officials
When you’re thinking of contacting elected officials, keep in mind two general rules.
1. Focus on contacting the elected officials who directly represent you — your City Councilmember, your county supervisor, and any Citywide or countywide officials.
If you don’t live in their district (or otherwise have a stake through a job, school, or property ownership), your opinion doesn’t matter nearly as much to them. If you don’t live in a key Councilmember’s district but want a specific piece of legislation to pass you can work on getting someone you know there to make a call or write a letter. The exceptions are the leaders of committees that have authority over an whole issue area.
2. Both the quality and quantity of your outreach matters.
Generating a huge number of digital petition signatures is great, but generally speaking, the more effort an action takes, the more weight an elected official will give to it.
Good: Petitions and generic form emails can make a difference at the local level (unlike at the national level where they are increasingly ineffectual)
Powerful: A personal phone call.
Good: A letter from one organization.
Powerful: Letters with sign-ons from dozens of organizations.
Good: A small group face-to-face visit (even via Zoom)
Powerful: Having the elected official join your community group for a forum where you get them on record in front of dozens or hundreds or thousands of people.
Whenever possible take the next step beyond a form email, and follow up with a phone call. There are staffers in each elected official’s office whose job it is to tally the number of phone calls and other communications for every side of an issue.
The importance of you
Stockton has huge untapped potential: the shell of a historic downtown ripe for revival, a unique waterfront ready for new uses, an economy with room for new jobs, industries and technologies, numerous neighborhoods with real character. But a healthy city requires a healthy civic culture.
In a healthy civic culture, citizens understand city government. They keep informed about city issues of the day. They debate the best policies. They vote. And they hold leaders accountable.
That is where you come in. Be it a healthy urban forest, waterfront housing with boat docks, or more bicycle trails – you name it -- if you can imagine it, you can set City Government on a course to creating a better Stockton.
The Committee System
In this section we’ll explain how the legislative branches of government work. Councils divide up their jurisdiction into multiple issue areas and assign a committee to each one (such as Community Development, Planning, or Cultural Heritage,). Each committee has a chair who’s responsible for setting the official agenda of each meeting plus several members who are interested in that issue, for one reason or another. For example, if you’re working on arts issues in the City of Stockton, that means you’re going to need to get Evai Dellafosse, Chair of the Stockton Arts Commission to take what you’re saying seriously.
Chairs have the power to prevent legislation and even proposals to study legislation from coming up for discussion. And they can play a critical role in whether motions pass the committee once they come up for a vote since committee members generally try to avoid getting on the bad side of the Chair. In some cases, Chairs may rely on City staff to develop the agenda and process by which the committee and broader public address issues.
There are an incredible number of checkpoints and chokepoints for slowing down and killing legislation before it ever comes up for a final vote of the City Council. At every step of this process, there are different ways to contact and press elected officials. You’ll need to make sure committee chairs put your policy priority on the agenda, rally the votes to pass it through committee, get the full council to put it on their agenda, and then muster the votes to pass it there.
It’s a reminder that you’ll need to keep sharing your voice and putting the pressure at every step of the process. Even better is the ability to pull powerful people, institutions, and coalitions behind your cause. And best is building your own electoral power so effectively that politicians fall in line when you put forward a policy priority.