Legislative advocacy refers to efforts to influence the introduction, enactment, or modification of legislation. This can include lobbying, ballot initiatives, legislative networks and campaigns, and explanations of legislative processes. Legislative advocacy can also encompass instruction on how to conduct campaigns, educating legislators, communications strategies to implement lobbying campaigns, rules regarding lobbying, building legislative networks, and tracking legislation and committee votes.

Generally, when one thinks of “advocacy” or “lobbying,” legislative advocacy is what first pops into their mind. Since most new laws originate in the legislature, legislative advocacy can be an extremely powerful tool for shaping policy.

The most common means of legislative advocacy is direct lobbying, which entails contacting a legislator and sharing your views on an issue, and asking him or her to vote a specific way on a bill. This can be done with something as easy as a phone call or letter, or by a formal meeting with the legislator or their staff. Another common activity is grassroots lobbying, which is encouraging others to contact their legislator about an issue.

A more complicated means of legislative advocacy is the ballot initiative, which puts a proposed law on an election ballot and allows voters to directly approve or reject it. While the original intention of allowing ballot initiatives was to give an outlet to grassroots movements in the face of perceived dominance of “special interests” in the legislative process, initiatives are tremendously expensive, and have been largely used by the same powerful forces that some fear have corrupted legislatures.

There is a more subtle form of advocacy, however, that involves providing information and educating legislators. Legislators must vote on a tremendously diverse number of bills, and cannot be an expert on every issue, so they often look to nonprofits and other groups for research and knowledge on issues.

Another level of legislative advocacy could be called “meta-advocacy” as it involves helping others get involved in legislative advocacy. This includes teaching others the mechanics of lobbying and the laws governing nonprofit lobbying, or even tracking legislation and votes.