Bill of Rights Defense Campaign

BILL OF RIGHTS Defense Committee - Working with communities to uphold the Bill of RightsWe the People
Working with communities to uphold the Bill of Rights
BORDC RSS Newsfeed  Add to Delicious  Recommend on Digg  Recommend on Reddit  Share on Furl  

State Resolutions Toolkit

Write your Resolution

Take a look at resolutions that have already passed statewide. They are listed on the righthand side of BORDC's Home page.

Take a look at resolutions that have passed locally in your state. From our Home page, in the Find Your State box, select your state.

Visit BORDC's Guide to Writing an Effective Resolution and Sample Resolution Clauses by Objective.

What do you want to add to your state resolution to enhance it?

  • Make the resolution specific to your state. For instance, in Oregon, the state constitution is stronger and contains more protections of people’s privacy and rights than even the U.S. Constitution.
  • Quoting your own state constitution in the resolution gives it strength in your own state, and can create a sense of duty among lawmakers to adhere to the Constitution they have sworn to uphold.
  • If you write your resolution in the same form and language as other resolutions the state has already passed, it will be more familiar to legislators, and they may feel more comfortable with you and your resolution from the start. Something that has a familiar look to it is less likely to appear frightening or odd. If you write your resolution without checking the format of the state in which you are working, it may give the impression you’re bringing in something from another place and trying to foist it off on local residents.
  • Be clear about and try to find agreement about which parts of the resolution your group may be willing to let go of for the sake of passage. When negotiations are ongoing with sponsors and supporters in the legislature, language can easily be torn to shreds. Make sure you know what are the values of the group – which parts of the resolution are most important to keep?

Take the resolution apart and look at it. Resolutions can be divided into two basic parts – the Preamble (the "Whereas" section) and the Operative section ("Therefore Be It Resolved"). If you split the resolution into these two parts, it makes it easier to make it through the length of a resolution.

Preamble/Whereas

The Preamble is where you state your case about why it’s necessary to pass a resolution.

  • Often a resolution begins with a reference to September 11, and how important it is that our freedom isn’t jeopardized by misguided notions of security.
  • It can be helpful here to add language from your state’s constitution, and any other echoes of life unique to your state that may be relevant.
  • Often the resolutions contain a litany of grievances with post 9/11 anti-terrorism laws and executive branch decisions with the force of law. Sometimes those grievances are specific, citing the exact number of the act or date the executive order was signed. Other times, the grievances are stated in a less specific way, detailing instead the human cost and effect on people.
  • Another feature that can be added is the fact that 375+ communities, counties and states have passed resolutions opposing these abrasions to our civil liberties, including ___ communities in our own state.

Operative/Resolved

Here’s where you can either have teeth in your resolution, or not.

  • You can also add teeth, even when legislators don’t realize you’ve added teeth. For instance, in Oregon – the citizen lobbyists who were negotiating with a Republican Senator were told that he would support the resolution if everything was taken out about the Patriot Act. This weakened the resolution considerably. But the able and nimble citizen lobbyists inserted other bits of language that the legislator either overlooked or did not understand, because by the time the bill passed the Senate, there was a clause supporting SB 1552, a bill, which if it had passed, would have surgically removed nearly every piece of the Patriot Act that eroded civil liberties.
  • Many times, this is where the legislature calls upon the Congress to remove the provisions of the Patriot Act that violate our civil liberties. It can also be a place for the legislature to urge other communities to rise up against the Patriot Act and other laws, which compromise those rights.