Official proceedings of the annual meeting: 1928

ORGANIZING FOR LEGISLATIVE REFORM-ROCKWOOD 4II
ORGANIZING THE COMMUNITY FOR LEGISLATIVE REFORM
Edith Rockwood, Public Affairs Secretary, Illinois League of Women Voters,
Chicago
I have been asked to describe the legislative work of the League of Women
Voters as an illustration of one method of community preparation for legislation.
The League and legislation.-The National League of Women Voters and
the state and local leagues are organized for citizenship education and "to
seek needed legislation."
This concern for legislation brings the League into two legislative fields.
First, laws relating to the structure and operation of government, such as election laws, civil service, taxation, reorganization of city, county, and state government. The second legislative field into which the League enters we include
under our public welfare committees. It includes the adaptation of government
service to human needs and the progressive legislation designed to meet newly
recognized needs. Examples of this are child welfare legislation, the women's
eight hour day, the women's state reformatory, which we secured in Illinois,
and other like measures.
Deciding on a legislative measure.-In dealing with legislation, the League
of Women Voters never works alone. Practically no law is passed until it has
the support of several organizations, nor should it go through unless it has a
reasonably wide public opinion back of it. In the process which I am describing, therefore, the League is one of the cooperating organizations and takes
more or less responsibility for the measure in proportion to the League's own
interest in it.
A proposal for new legislation grows out of the experience of some group
which is dealing with a particular situation. When such a proposal has been
made by one organization, it is necessary to call into conference groups handling similar situations to see whether they agree that legislation is needed and
what kind of legislation it should be.
In Illinois the state organizations are at present uniting in a tax conference for this purpose, and it is our practice from time to time to have similar
conferences on election laws. The next step consists in studying the Illinois
law and in learning what the best practice is elsewhere. For this purpose we
turn to our research agencies such as our Legislative Reference Bureau, our
Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency, Citizens' Association of Chicago, and, if
the legislation is in the social field, to the social agencies. Nationally we rely
upon the information supplied by the federal bureaus and by national research
organizations which send us material concerning other states. When the bill
itself is to be drafted we usually have some attorney formulate the first draft
of the proposal, and before introduction it is submitted to the Legislative Reference Bureau to be sure that in its drafting it conforms to Illinois law and