Planning A Joint Online CCL Meeting With Your Member Of Congress

This training walks through how to plan a large joint CCL meeting with one or more of your chapter's members of Congress. The goal of this event is to show your incumbent member(s) of Congress the strength of CCL and to encourage them to work with your group to take further action on climate change and enacting solutions.

Breadcrumb

/topics/congressional-in-district-activities

TOC and Guide Section

Background

Members of Congress are looking for ways to connect with constituents during our 2022 election year, and you can help them do that! Zoom makes it easy to gather a large crowd of volunteers in one meeting. The goal of this event is to show your incumbent member(s) of Congress the strength of CCL and to encourage them to talk about climate solutions with their colleagues. Be sure to consider who would be the most strategic member of Congress to invite.

Picking A Main Topic For Your Online Meeting

Work with chapters in your district/state to plan a Zoom meeting with your Representative and/or a Senator. Decide who will select which MOC to focus on, come up with a date, and work with the liaison to create an invitation. Be sure to include a main topic in your invite, tailored to the interests of your MOC:

Climate, energy, conservation and the environment
Climate impacts in the district/state
Climate solutions

More Specific Ideas For Republicans:

Do you believe it is important for Republicans to provide more leadership on climate policy?
CCL advocated for several climate-related bills at our recent lobby day: the FOREST ACT, RISEE ACT and the Growing Climate Solutions Act. All were bipartisan. Do you have any thoughts or plan to support any of these bills? How are you working to protect the environment?
CCL has been working with several groups to help advance our priorities, including environmental groups, local businesses, faith leaders [consider entering specific names here that are of greatest interest in their district/state]. Which organizations do you enjoy working with and who do you think would be important to passing the kinds of innovation and market-based policies that Republicans can get behind?

More Specific Ideas For Democrats:

How do we create durable solutions that can survive successive administrations?
For us, it’s important that climate be a bridge between the parties, rather than a wedge. It’s hard to see examples of bipartisanship in today’s politics. Give us some hope; where have you seen bipartisanship work well, and what were the important factors that enabled the bipartisanship that we might try to recreate?
CCL has been working with several groups to help advance our shared priorities, including environmental groups, local businesses, faith leaders [consider entering specific names here that are of greatest interest in their district/state]. Which organizations do you enjoy working with and which you think would be important to passing the kinds of policies that both Democrats and Republicans can get behind?

Steps To Plan Your Meeting

Coordinate with CCL chapters in the District (Representative) and in the State (Senators)
Identify an appointment setter and meeting planner for each meeting. This should include the liaison
As a team, select a topic, create an agenda and pick a date
Work with the liaisons to create an invitation for your members of Congress
Invite all the CCLers in the district/state. This is for you, so it’s best not to invite non-CCL allies.
Collect everyone's questions in advance and select the ones you will ask during the meeting. Allowing impromptu questions during the meeting might take your meeting off topic.
Have a dress rehearsal in advance with a volunteer playing the role of the MOC. Volunteers who are managing security as Zoom co-hosts should be able to avoid/contain Zoom bombing.