NARFE Members Enthusiastically Advocate During Grassroots Advocacy Month

LEARN MORE about how you can take action to protect your earned pay and benefits by reviewing NARFE Grassroots materials at www.narfe.org/advocacy.

NARFE’s advocacy program is growing stronger each day, with members stepping up and joining advocacy efforts to protect and enhance the interests of the active and retired federal community from policies and legislation that threaten to reduce or eliminate their earned benefits. NARFE applauds its members for recognizing that lobbying alone cannot get the work done; it takes a collaborative effort by the entire NARFE community to succeed.

This enthusiasm is why we are primed for NARFE’s Grassroots Advocacy Month. Each August, NARFE rolls out its Grassroots Advocacy Month campaign to connect members with their lawmakers, who are returning to their home districts and states for the congressional recess. The recess, which lasts until Labor Day, provides legislators with ample opportunities to meet with their constituents, so NARFE ensures that members take advantage of this time to continue discussions on its legislative priorities.

This year, participants are engaging in various campaign activities, including using NARFE’s Legislative Action Center to send policy-specific letters to lawmakers and to editors of local news media. NARFE is again engaging members in a social media campaign designed to reach more members. NARFE also encourages advocates to engage with their lawmakers via social media to foster meaningful discussions about Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) repeal and reform. Connecting with your legislators on platforms

like Facebook and Twitter is integral to capturing their attention. See this issue’s cover story on Page 24 for advocacy tips, including ones for social media use.

Spurred to enact change, hundreds of members participated in NARFE’s virtual legislative training conference, LEGcon21, in June. The conference, NARFE’s first fullscale virtual conference, included training programs for members at different levels of advocacy experience, helping them gain new skills to be more effective in the field and to improve advocacy engagement within their federation and chapter.

Participants heard from policy experts, agency representatives and nearly a dozen members of Congress, including House Committee on Oversight and Reform Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, and Rep. Rodney Davis, R-IL. Davis is the sponsor of the Social Security Fairness Act, NARFE-supported legislation that would repeal the WEP and Government Pension Offset (GPO). Advocates, including federation and chapter leaders, were quickly able to implement the new skills and strategies they learned as they engaged in a virtual lobby day with lawmakers on the third day of the conference.

NARFE thanks its advocates for their continued support of advocacy and their engagement in Grassroots Advocacy Month and LEGcon21. If you are a member who would like to learn more about advocacy or join other NARFE voices in advocacy activities, please contact the advocacy department at advocacy@narfe.org.

—BY MARSHA PADILLA-GOAD, GRASSROOTS PROGRAM MANAGER