By Charles Stefanini, MNA Director of Legislation and Government Affairs

As the newly appointed Director of Legislation and Government Affairs, I am proud and honored to write my first column for MassNurse. I am extremely excited about the opportunities that lie ahead for our organization. I believe that our limits are boundless and that working together we can and will build the strongest and most influential political and legislative program possible.

There are a number of short and long-term goals and objectives I have for the organization's legislative and political program, including:

• Conduct "Legislative and Political Action Training Seminars" at each bargaining unit location

• Increase membership participation in NursePLAN, the MNA's political action committee

• Conduct a membership voter registration assessment

• Conduct a membership voter registration drive to register unregistered members

• Expand the Rapid Response Network

• Create a legislative and political action committee within each bargaining unit and build a team of activists in each legislative district

• Utilize advances in technology to disseminate information to our members and arm them with the facts in meeting and calling legislators

• Increase membership involvement in political campaigns to elect those legislators that share our ideas and defeat those who do not

• Identify, assist and elect more nurses to the state legislature

The leadership of the MNA is committed to achieving legislative successes that matter to you, the membership. They have contracted with one of the most respected and influential lobbying firms on Beacon Hill, Corry Associates, and have made passage of Safe Staffing Legislation their number one priority. But it cannot happen without you!

Membership participation in the legislative and political process is vital to MNA's success in the public policy arena. Virtually everything that affects your job as a registered nurse is decided on Beacon Hill: staffing levels, medication errors, health care financing, licensing, the nursing shortage, workplace violence issues, health insurance and other benefits, mandatory overtime, conversion to for-profit hospitals – all issues that are debated and decided by our elected officials. You cannot afford not to have your voice heard.

The MNA has an aggressive legislative agenda this session, sponsoring 16 bills, as well supporting and working on Senator Richard Moore's nursing package, which addresses the nursing shortage and medical errors. There is much work to be done to move this agenda forward.

The legislative session is quickly upon us and the public hearing season on all legislative matters has begun. I encourage you to participate in the public hearing process. Come to the State House and give your own personal testimony about your experiences on the front-line of the health care delivery system – nothing is more powerful than your own personal story. We can, working with our Communications Department, assist you in drafting and presenting your testimony. Please check the MNA website at www.massnurses.org for updated information on the hearing schedule of MNA sponsored legislation. In addition, we need members to call and write their legislators to urge their support of our issues.

A recent national poll found that nurses are the most trusted profession today. Couple that with a message of quality patient health care and you have a powerful combination. That is why we need you to help us in our efforts. There is nothing more powerful than a registered nurse calling or meeting with their state senator or state representative to tell them about the importance of passing safe staffing legislation—to share with them their first hand accounts of life on the front line—to tell them that their constituents are in jeopardy and that their health care quality is deteriorating unless something is done. Please, Make Your Voice Heard!

"Membership participation in the legislative and political process is vital to MNA's success in the public policy arena."

"Virtually everything that affects your job as a registered nurse is decided on Beacon Hill."

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