How to Get a Moratorium Resolution Passed
What To Do With Your Resolution

How To Get a Moratorium Resolution Passed by an Organization

1. Initiate contact with the organization. If you do not have personal contacts with the organization, you can mail a letter with a fact sheet and resolution enclosed. If you do mail the information, make a follow-up call.
2. Find out the procedures, if any, by which the group considers a resolution. Arrange with the organization when you can make a brief presentation. You can approach student groups, labor unions, school faculty councils, student governing associations, political clubs, social justice organizations….
3. Prepare your resolution. Use our sample or create your own. Prepare supporting materials. You can start with our faq and a list of current supporting groups.
4. Line up your support. Consider sharing your plans to introduce the resolution with others in the group who you think will support it. Share your draft with them and ask for their input and help in convincing the group to pass it.
5. Introduce your resolution. Be sure that everyone involved in the decision has a copy of your resolution. Make yourself available to answer questions or to provide background information.
   
   Avoid an emotional tug a war between partisans on both sides of the issue. You are not proposing an up-or-down decision on the death penalty; rather, you are asking people to take a hard look at how the death penalty is actually being applied.
   
   Your presentation should be very brief:
• Introduce yourself and your organization
• Pass out your materials - this should include a fact-sheet on the death penalty, a copy of the resolution, a list of other groups that have passed resolutions, and a cover letter requesting their support. Emphasize if any groups similar to theirs has passed a resolution. Do research before you make your presentation.
• Explain three key points about the death penalty - what you think will be most compelling
• Explain the importance of the resolution
• Request their support
• Follow-up with your contact at the organization if a decision is not made at the meeting. Ask when a decision will be reached and if they need additional materials.
6. If your resolution is passed: Be sure to alert the local media - local newspapers, school newspapers! Send out a press release. Click here for a sample press release and media questions and answers. Send a copy of your ratified resolution to New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty so that it can be added to our state tally.
If your resolution does not pass: Don't get discouraged! Introducing it has surely educated some people in the group and you have probably made some new allies. Consult with them about your next steps. Consider ways in which you can do some on going education before introducing a resolution again in the future.

What to do With Your Resolution

After you've gotten your group on board, set out to recruit others!
How?

1. Alert your entire membership that your group has passed a moratorium resolution. Encourage them to take a similar resolution to other groups they're involved in.
2. Do you give talks with other groups, churches, or schools in your area? If you do, include the resolution campaign in your talk (if the group is favorable). Alternately, after your talk when interested people ask you what they can do, you can give them some blank resolutions to take to their group or others later on.
3. Take a resolution to your city council. Depending on the position of city council members, this can be easier or harder than getting resolutions from faith communities and grassroots groups. Some pass easily, others take some lobbying.

Organizing your group:

Collecting resolutions gives people something concrete to do. For volunteer or people new to the group, it's something more interesting and more rewarding than stuffing envelopes. When you set goals for collecting resolutions, you give yourself a structure. You can decide to collect a certain number of resolutions statewide each month, or a certain number by the end of the year, or a certain number from each city, or a certain number each from churches, activist groups, and city councils. Collecting resolutions gives your group a concrete vehicle for reaching out to other constituencies and talking to them about the issue.

Legislatively speaking:

Ultimately, you want to spark the introduction or help the passage of state legislation calling for a moratorium. If there is already legislation pending in your state, find out who supports it. Find out who doesn't yet support it, but might based on other issues they've supported in the past. Focus on getting those folks on board first by demonstrating popular support for moratorium in their district.

This information was provided by Equal Justice USA. Equal Justice keeps a national tally of endorsing organizations. Please visit their website if you are planning to lobby your city council for a resolution.