Each year, our League agrees on a limited number of advocacy and educational priorities. Advocacy committees are grounded in formal policy positions, crafted from rigorous study and then adopted by a process of consensus or concurrence. Educational priorities may include issues where study is on-going. Additional issues can arise during the year, depending on member interest and may become part of a subsequent year’s program.
We use a DEI lens to examine what we do — programs, internal processes, advocacy, and outreach —and what that may mean to communities we seek to serve, as we seek to make our League more equitable and inclusive. This includes what we do within our League, in our outreach to communities, and in the positions for which we advocate. Learn more
We educate about and advocate for electoral systems (locally and in NYS) that reflect voter preferences better than our current system of plurality voting.
We advocate and educate on NYS healthcare legislation to improve public health through equitable access, cost containment, and safety. After rigorous study of how best to achieve comprehensive universal healthcare that is affordable for patients, taxpayers, and employers, the LWV NYS supports the New York Health Act, that would reduce the total expenditures on Healthcare by reducing administrative costs and allowing negotiated volume discounts on drugs and devices, and centering healthcare decisions on patients, their families and their healthcare providers. We also team with the NYS Rural Caucus and the LWV Rural Affairs Caucus (30 states), advocating for critical issues in rural areas — healthcare, broadband, voting rights, etc.
We monitor public efforts to protect and sustain our natural resources, particularly the quantity and quality of our groundwater, and to reduce plastics, pollution and toxic contaminants. We educate and advocate on issues specific to Long Island and beyond to address the perils of climate change and to be better stewards of our Earth
We monitor local legislatures and city councils in Nassau County for transparency and PWM priority issues. We host the TNH State of the Town Address and manage the TNH Housing Authority Elections. This is an area where we are always looking for volunteers who seek to learn more about local issues and local leaders.
We advocate for fair political maps for all elected offices; we oppose partisan and racial gerrymandering. This year and next, using demographic data from the 2020 Census, we engage our communities to influence the NYS Redistricting Commission, encourage local organizing, testifying at hearings, and using the League software mapping tool People Powered Fair Maps™
We support the ERA nationally and lobby for NYS legislation to guarantee women equal opportunity by removing legal and economic barriers around pay, employment, access to credit and child custody. We also seek to protect women and families subjected to coercion, domestic violence, and human trafficking.
We select and sponsor local students for the annual LWVNY Students Inside Albany conference which (pre-pandemic) offered in-person insider views of the legislative process. We honor student volunteers for “Participation in Government,” civic activities that benefit the community.
We maintain on-going voter information and registration efforts — with students, new citizens, and in low-turnout communities. Citizens need their voices to be heard, and voting is one key to that.
As a nonpartisan political organization, we offer voters in our communities the opportunity to hear and see candidates respond to questions of local interest. Our reputation for being nonpartisan with respect to candidates and political parties has always been a source of strength to the League, a strength we zealously guard. It is a cornerstone of our “Making Democracy Work” initiatives to increase citizen engagement.
