How is a health issue made into law?

Chico David, BSN, RN · Nov 13, 2008

That last post is not too wide of the mark, but I would add one modification. The somebody who says " there ought to be a law" is usually some sort of organized body. A local government entity, a union, an industry group, an advocacy group such as an environmental organization or whatever. Rarely does a legislator think of a law on their own or based on input from a single constituent. Usually one of those organizations writes the law and finds a legislator to carry it. And all of those steps described are subject to a wide range of outside influences from other groups with an interest in the process. Often there are complex multi sided negotiations. Quite often groups will weigh in with things like: "We'll support this if you amend it this way" or whatever.

For a while I was on the Leg/reg committee of CNA/NNOC and the stories I heard of how things get done were pretty interesting.

As an added tidbit, our lobbyists for our union spend a lot more time stopping bad laws than they do pushing good ones. Most of the bad ones are laws to allow some lesser trained or untrained group of practitioners take over some part of RN practice. A bunch of those get introduced every year and have to be stomped on.

It's also worth noting that different entities have more or less power in the process based on MANY different factors; donations to legislators, your reputation for keeping your promises, past relationships, reputation with the public, how many people you represent, etc. In California politics, the prison guard's union has lot of power because they give a lot of money to politicians. CNA has a lot of power even though we don't give a lot of money. We have power because: We have a lot of members, the public loves nurses, we keep our promises - good and bad - and because our legislative people know their stuff and provide accurate, reliable information - a rare and valuable commodity in the legislature. And because a few times when a legislator really crossed us badly, they found a whole bunch of chanting nurses outside their district office. Bad for the image.