Contacting Your Legislator
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Contacting Your Legislator

Hello Washington Fairs Association Members,

Now is the time to take the next step. We’d like you to schedule individual appointments with your legislative delegation members to make the “ask” to continue the capital grant program for Fairs. Legislators are accepting virtual meetings this year, you should be able to do these meetings from your office.

For those of you that don’t know who your delegation members are, you can use this district finder link on the legislative website. Washington State Legislature- District Finder

Once you know who your legislators are you can email them for an appointment request to talk about our issue. This is the link to the legislative “roster” page. Washington State Legislature- Roster Page

At the “Members” section on the top, you will see the option to select House or Senate. Once you click on the appropriate a list of legislators and their assistants will pop up. Once you navigate to your legislator you will see their email address in addition to the address of their Legislative Assistant (LA). That is the right person to send the request to. LA’s are the gatekeeper to a legislator and handle their schedules. Scheduling is a very difficult task for the LA’s as the calendar for committee hearings and other activities can change quickly. Be patient with them.

When requesting an appointment, I always like to describe the request and what the topic is, here is an example.

Subject – Appointment Request – xxxxx , xxxx County Fair Manager

Email Body –

Dear LA’s name,

I’m contacting you today in hopes of finding a time to meet virtually with Representative xxxx to discuss Capital Funding for Fairs. I’d like to let the Representative know what that funding has meant to the xxx Fair and what another round could do for our community.
Thank you.

It’s that simple, some offices are faster than others at getting back to you. Unfortunately, it does happen that they don’t get back to you at all. The meeting you are requesting isn’t super time-sensitive, if it happens by late February that’s just fine. Also, some offices will ask you to email the information rather than do a meeting. If that’s the case, I would email them what you would have said in a meeting. Less than ideal, but we still want to be responsive.

Once you have meetings set let us know, our Olympia lobbyist, Mike Burgess will join the meeting if scheduling allows for that.

Please email your appointment to wastatefairs@outlook.com. Please include the Legislator it is with and the time and date you have the meeting. Mike may try to join if he is available.

We thank you for your efforts on this. Contact with constituents back home is extremely important to legislators.

Thank you,

Mike Burgess
MJB Consulting Inc.
Government Affairs
360-223-3020 | mikejburg@comcast.net

Tawnia Linde, IFMG
WSFA Board Legislative Chair

Andrea Thayer, CFE
WSFA Board President
253.841.5008 | andreat@thefair.com

Gale Sobolesky, CFE
WSFA Executive Secretary
360-269-9971

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