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OAA's Legislative
Action Center |
The OAA has recently introduced a legislative tool that will allow Opticians to get involved with current legislation and do so easily. The LAC (Legislative Action Center) is a section of the OAA site hosted by Capwiz XC™ that allows Opticians to get involved with the process of making and changing the laws of this great nation. I will attempt to outline the various sections of the site and how these tools will affect each and every Optician that utilizes it.
Home Page
From the start, the home page gives the user a snap shot of what's happening now. Current legislation the OAA has deemed important to our industry will appear as alerts on the front page. These alerts will vary from informational alerts to calls to action. The alerts will depend on the urgency of the piece of legislation. From the front page the user can utilize many of the LAC's tools and features such as the web sticker. Web stickers will allow webmasters of their own sites to link to various sections of the LAC, which will allow member states to put together their own LAC, where members can utilize the various tools the LAC provides.
Alerts stickers are also an important yet distinct web sticker. Alert stickers are a means of putting alerts on various websites and have the benefit of never needing updates. The alert web sticker gets its data directly from the OAA's website and will display them on the user's website. These stickers will allow webmasters to display changing content with little effort and will also help support the OAA's causes. This tool will also allow Opticians through the OAA's web portal to keep abreast of legislation in our industry like never before.
Elected Officials
From this area of the OAA's site, Opticians will be able to look up and research their representatives. From senators to governors, this tool will allow Opticians to look up the members of our nation's legislative branch quickly and efficiently. The information provided will be detailed; phone numbers addresses, religion, marital status and much more. From these representative biographies, Opticians will be able to contact them in numerous ways. As the system is used more frequently and more key bills are voted on, the system will keep tally of who voted for which key bill. This will create a variable scorecard for members of our legislative system that will give Opticians a percentage rating of who supports our causes. This alone will prove to be a powerful voting tool.
Issues
The Issues section is where all alerts can be viewed and is the most important section of the site, as it's from here that all the various alerts will be available. Alerts come in various flavors; informational, call to action, and immediate call to action. An informational alert will be information that should be read and viewed as important to all of us, these alerts can and will become active alerts at future dates. Informational alerts will give all Opticians the opportunity to look further into an issue before it becomes a bill. These alerts will often give information as to what's going on in our industry that does not directly affect Opticians. Another kind of alert that is very important is the call to action, which will come in many formats. These calls to action are alerts that allow Opticians to write their representatives with a click of the mouse. Often the alert will give Opticians a brief overview of the bill, as well as an opportunity to fill in a web form that will be emailed directly to the representative's office, voicing your opinion. This is a vital key to legislation; contact and communication. The system allows the OAA to keep track of active members of the optical community and allows the OAA to communicate with Opticians and keep them informed of upcoming key legislation.
The third alert is an immediate call to action, which will come in the same form as the call to action but will ask you to pick up the phone and call your representative immediately. This is for those overnight bills that pop up from time to time that could potentially harm our profession. Now you can be kept informed of these bills and given a chance to respond all from one place. In the Issues section there is also a great resource on etiquette when contacting legislators. This will provide key ways to have your message stand out among the plethora of messages that politicians receive.
Elections
This section will highlight elections across the country and allow Opticians to look and compare candidates. In the future, this section will also be populated with scorecard data that will allow Opticians to get an at a glance look at the candidates and how they voted towards Opticianry bills. Now it's even easier to hold you candidates responsible for their past votes.
Media
This tool is great for both legislation and for those press releases that our office will often write and send to the media. Has anyone in your office passed the ABO? Well, this tool will allow you to look up the media and their contact in your neighborhood. Next time a member of your office passes a national examination, send a press release along with a current picture to the media, this tool will make that an easy task. Also, if your legislators are acting irresponsibly, let the media know.
The OAA has always been the legislative voice of Opticians and through the LAC; Opticians are now able to control their own voice. This tool is far more interactive and will never be done justice with just one article, so I invite everyone to take it for a test drive, sign up, heck, you can even register to vote. The point is don't be reactive anymore; be proactive and we can once again restore our profession to its past stature and glory.
Go to http://capwiz.com/oaa/home to check out the program
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