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Submitting Public Comments

Submitting Public Comments

 

Legislative and Policy Alerts

Colorado

 

 

Tips for Writing and Submitting Public Comments

Read the proposal.

If your comments are to be taken seriously, you must demonstrate that you understand and are responding to the actual proposal on the table rather than just registering an emotional outburst on what you have heard secondhand are or what you assume from the document title to be the changes that are in play.

 

Find and follow the requirements for public comment.

To submit a public comment, you will need to know how, when, and where to do so. Are you to physically mail your comment somewhere, email it to a specific address, upload it to a particular website, etc.? Is there a maximum length allowed or other formatting information you need to keep in mind when you write it? What is the deadline to submit your comment? Can you request to speak at a public hearing? This information can usually be found either in the proposal document itself or on the website where the proposal was posted. Once you find the instructions, follow them to the letter if you want to have any chance of your comments being considered.

 

Define your objective.

Once you understand what is being proposed, write a sentence that defines what outcome you want. For example:

  • I support passage of HB317 restoring jury size in all criminal cases to twelve jurors.
  • I request that the proposed change to the court rules permanently allowing remote jury selection by videoconference be delayed until the effects of such processes on the representativeness of juries are studied and understood.

 

List the advantages and disadvantages of the proposal.

You do not need to cover all of these in your public comment. It is handy, however, to have them all laid out so you can strategically choose which to incorporate into your comments. It can also save you a lot of time by allowing you to identify and write about your most important points first. That way, if you are up against the limit on the length of your comment, you won't have wasted time writing about points that you would just wind up editing out anyway.

If you are opposing a proposal, you may want to focus primarily or solely on the disadvantages. If you are supporting a proposal, you may want to play up the advantages while also preemptively defusing potential disadvantages that others might bring up in their comments.

How to proceed is often more clear once you have all the pluses and minuses laid out in one place along with the instructions for submitting comments.

 

Read other people's comments.

This may give you some hints on what opposing viewpoints you may want to counter in your comments, identify gaps that your comments can uniquely fill, etc.

 

 

 

Expired Legislative and Policy Alerts

Washington