Originally posted 9/11/2015
In March 2015, Citizen Physicians hosted Emily Flower, a volunteer with Generation Citizen to teach a workshop about civic engagement to the medical students of Alpert Medical School. After laying down some foundational civic knowledge, she went on to point out some of the tools that are available to us as citizens and explained several strategies for how to effectively communicate with and engage members of the local government. Let's review. Civics and Bureaucracy 101 In order to engage or affect change in the government, we first have to know how it functions. The two main branches that are pervious to our influence are the executive branch (i.e. mayor, governor) and the legislative branch (i.e. city council, state legislature). The third, the judicial branch, is not accessible to us. The executive branch executes/ enforces the law; it proposes yearly budgets, runs departments, and spends money (city: mayor, state: governor, federal: president). The legislative branch creates the law; it approves budgets, creates departments, and makes multi-year changes (city: city council, state: state legislature, federal: congress). States governments are responsible for social services such as healthcare, education, and transportation. They are responsible for annual matters, like taxes and elections. Conversely, city governments are responsible for daily life and local services such as trash pickup, utilities, safety/fire, and road maintenance. Here, we use Providence as an example to examine the structure of local government. The following is a slide from Emily's presentation. City Council and the creation of city laws In Providence, there are 15 city councilors representing the 15 wards/neighborhoods that compose the City Council. Their job is to create laws. Here's how they do it. An ordinance is sponsored by at least 1 councilor The ordinance is proposed to Council The ordinance is referred to a 5-councilor committee* Once the ordinance passes committee, the ordinance is put to a vote, where 8 out of 15 votes are required to pass The mayor must then sign the ordinance into law. If he does not sign and thus vetoes, it is returned to Council, where 10 votes can override the mayor's veto and pass it into law. *If the resolution/ordinance is not passed out of committee by the last day of the legislative session (in July), it will "die" in committee. This is essentially how laws are created at the state level as well. In the RI General Assembly (House+Senate), there are 75 representatives in the lower House of Representatives and 39 senators in the upper Senate. 38 votes are required to pass a bill, and 50 votes are required to override a veto from the governor. Let's dig in. How do I interact with my local government? For one-time issues in your city. For issues such as potholes, streetlights, neighborhood noise, missed trash days, there is an online system called ProvConnex to provide direct feedback from the city's homepage. There's also an iPhone/Android app to submit issues as well. I suggest going to the website and clicking around to see what they have to offer there. If you don't do it now, you probably never will! For an example, here are a couple of slides from Emily's slideshow that pointed out how to navigate from the homepage to request a pothole be filled. For ongoing issues at the city level. Where an ordinance or resolution might be required to address your issue, it's time to work with the City Council. Before you begin, you should research your topic for relevant ordinances by searching the city's municipal code. The code is kept at the City Clerk office's website. I provided the link directly to the municipal code, but the City Clerk's office is responsible for keeping all official documents, calendars, keeping track of who is on which committee and when the meetings are, so their website is a good resource. Next, you can contact your councilperson about your issue. Councilors will be much, much more likely to listen to you and work for you if you are someone who can vote for them. To find out who your councilperson is, visit the City Council's website. You can call (401-521-7477) and email the Council's office to speak with researchers and staff. To email the entire city council, email council@providenceri.com. Follow up every 2 days via email and phone until you hear a response. City Council meetings are held on the evenings of the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of each month except during summer recess. Thanks again to Generation Citizen and Emily Flower. In a following post, we will discuss how to open the door to interacting with your state government. Stay tuned! Post Author: James Tanch, a medical student at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University and the Director of Technology and Blog Editor for Citizen Physicians
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Originally posted 9/7/2015
Starting medical school is intimidating. I remember worrying that somehow I’d show up for my first day already behind. I remember worrying about making friends. I remember worrying that I wouldn’t have enough time to get sufficient background information on the upcoming ballot referenda to make an educated decision on how to vote during the November election. Okay. I know that that last one isn’t on everyone’s mind as they’re about to start medical school, but I’m from the D.C. area: politics is my bread and butter. But it wasn’t always. My first real exposure to government was when I interned for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) during college. At some point during that experience -- I can’t remember exactly when the lightning bolt hit -- I realized that “government” was just a bunch of human beings who were given the authority to make decisions. And I realized that “policy” was just the decisions that those human beings made. I know that that is a gross over simplification, but before this eureka moment, government to me was simply large, intimidating, enigmatic, and inaccessible. I quickly learned that the humans in government have a lot of power over my life, but I am the one who gives them that power. We vote them into office to represent us and we can vote them out of office if we’re not happy with them. When I called my State Senator for the first time, he picked up the phone directly. When I saw him on election day at my polling center, I reintroduced myself as his constituent. I could tell that he knew that I could either vote him out of office or I could encourage all my family and friends to keep him as our representative. He cared what I had to say because I had the power to vote him in or out of a job. I moved to Providence, Rhode Island for medical school three months before election day 2014. The evening after my parents dropped me off, I attended a community gubernatorial forum. The next day I got a tour of Rhode Island’s State House and registered to vote right then and there. Once I got confirmation of my voter registration, I emailed my State Representative asking if he had some time to answer a few questions I had about the upcoming ballot referenda. I personally know how dramatically one ballot initiative has impacted my own life, so I have a great appreciation for how dramatically any of those upcoming ballot initiatives may impact the lives of others. Not only did my State Representative make time for me, but he invited me to meet over coffee so we could have a proper conversation. When I tell that story to friends, they’re often surprised that my local representative made time for me. But that’s the beauty of local politics: those humans in government really are accessible. I know that “register to vote” isn’t on the top of every new medical student’s to-do list when there are so many seemingly more critical things to do as the intimidation of our first day of classes comes closer. But at the end of these four years, we’ll have an “M.D.” at the end of our names. And with those two letters comes both power and responsibility. We medical students have a proud history of advocating on behalf of their patients. And one day we may need to testify at a State House to provide expertise on specific healthcare issues. But the training needed to affect real change on a policy level is sparsely addressed in medical education. Citizen Physicians is not here to push any agenda or advocate for any specific issue. We are here because there was no voter registration table at my class’ new student orientation. We are here for every future healthcare providers when they realize that our jobs don’t always end when we sign off on a prescription. We are here because no one is exempt from civic engagement. And we are here to make sure that all future healthcare providers know how to effectively utilize their power as a citizen physician. We are here to help build the movement to get healthcare practitioners involved in civic engagement. We hope this blog allows you to follow our journey and join us. We hope you enjoy and we hope you engage. Post author: Aaron Shapiro Founder, President |
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