Top Ranked 2024-25 Program Priorities

Voting in Orange County - Ensure that everyone has access and the ability to vote, educate our community on the importance of voting, and support Vote411.org

Women's Rights – Advocate for initiatives that support and expand women’s rights under the ERA, reproductive rights, healthcare and Medicaid expansion, and equal pay.

Education - Educate the public about the values, benefits, and importance of fully funding public schools. Advocate that all schools receiving public support in Florida be held to the same assessment and accountability standards as public schools.

Affordable Housing - Advocate to fund housing initiatives that increase housing stability in Orange County for all income levels. Our goal is to support enhancing the quality of life for Orange County citizens by focusing on housing access and affordability.

Advocacy Action Plans

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility

Make LWVOC a “Champion of DEIA”
Promote Cultural Awareness
Support 2024 Election activities

Government Committee

Continue Observer Corps for governing boards
Continue support of all voter education, including the NPV and Interstate Compact
Monitor Orange County Charter Review Commission
Promote LWVOC to moderate candidate forums
Engage and educate voters about Vote 411
Meet legislators and local leaders to discuss LWVOC priorities

Hot Topics

Produce 10 events, except July and December
Expand marketing and outreach
Grow LWVOC membership

Natural Resources

CLEAN ENERGY & CLIMATE CHANGE
1. Obtain a commitment from OCPS to build one Zero-Energy prototype school building.
CONSERVATION LANDS
1. Find permanent financing for the conservation land acquisition by Orange County’s GreenPLACE Program.
WATER
1. Secure an endorsement from an additional community organization for the Florida Right To Clean Water Amendment.
2024 ELECTION SPECIAL PROJECTS
1. Election Sign Recycling Campaign
  Introduce the program to Hillsborough and Polk Counties Sustainability Offices
Get Out the ENVIRONMENTAL Vote!

Transportation

Support new revenue sources, local, state, and federal to fund capital operating expenses for public transit:
Advocate for change in Florida statute to allow TDT money to be used (Rep Eskamani)
Review and Educate on plan for Orange County to best serve workforce travel via Lynx and SunRail between key employment destinations and core neighborhoods
Expedite linkage via SunRail/Brightline partnership for Sunshine Corridor OIA/Convention Center connection
Work to add evening, Saturday, and Sunday service for SunRail and Lynx
Continue support for the Transportation Disadvantaged who are unable to use Lynx’s regular fixed-route bus service

Strategic Committees

Membership Member Issues
DEIA Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility
Communications Website, email, press releases
Fund Development Sponsorships, fund raising, investment
Speaker's Bureau Request a LWVOC speaker

MEMBERS: You can expand your involvement with your other interests by joining committees at the state level.
Additional LWVFL committees include:

• Gun Safety • Ethics & Campaign Finance • Immigration • Juvenile Justice • Poverty

Learn more at https://www.lwvfl.org/issues/.

LWVOC Organizational Strategic Goals

Membership Growth And Visibility
1. Continue to develop projects and activities that increase membership and member participation.
2. Increase League visibility by continuing to improve communication and outreach through our website, social media, and news posts.
3. Continue to ensure our leadership and membership reflect the rich diversity of our community.

Organizational Capacity
1. Support the LWVOC Leadership Development Initiatives to define new ways to engage younger voters and to develop member skills to become future League and community leaders.
2. Build LWVOC’s capacity as a nonprofit organization by identifying and budgeting key staffing support necessary to develop and strengthen the organization
3. Continue to support the growing needs as a community organization by pursuing new and existing funding sources to support its work.

Outreach And Education
1. Educate and raise public awareness on League issues.
2. Expand our network of community partners and collaborators to strengthen voter engagement, education, and advocacy initiatives.
3. Expand outreach to engage and support younger voters.

Membership Growth And Visibility
1. Participate in state and national training, programs, and advocacy efforts.
2. Support the positions adopted by the League of Women Voters of Florida and the League of Women Voters of the United States.

LWVFL & LWVUS Legislative Priorities

The League of Women Voters of Orange County is a local league of the League of Women Voters of the United States and the League of Women Voters of Florida (LWVFL). LWVFL is a grassroots organization that focuses on statewide issues that our members care the most about. Each year, membership is polled statewide to see which issues are most important to them at the current point in time. Every local League is given the opportunity to submit priorities. After tabulating each local League’s submissions, the top four areas become priorities for the annual state legislative session. If a particular issue has not made it into the allocated legislative priority spots, it does not mean the issue is not monitored or acted upon by our State League.

LWVFL 2024 Legislative Priorities

Voting Rights & Election Reform
1. Remove the voter suppression elements from SB90
2. Shorten the time between book closing date and an election to ten days
3. Support automatic registration (opt-out system), same-day voter registration, and improved online voter registration
4. Support automatic restoration of voting rights for former felony offenders after completion of sentence excluding any additional fines or liens not ordered by the sentencing judge. Amendment 4 excludes persons convicted of murder or felony sex offenders.
5. Support notifying voters if their Vote-By-Mail ballot has been accepted or rejected and provide a remedy for ensuring the vote of those whose ballots have been rejected.
6. Support the election of the President and Vice president by direct popular vote, and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
7. Support state funding of return postage for Vote-By-Mail ballots in all counties when Congressional and Florida legislative offices are on the ballot.
LEARN MORE

Education
1. Promote adequate and equitable funding of public education and oppose the use of public funding for the expansion of funding of private education, including through voucher program
2. Support a curricular framework that has broad common standards developed by educational experts that serves as a guide to local districts, including the historic mandates to teach Holocaust, antisemitism, and African American
History, and associated messages of tolerance and understanding, and the new standard to teach civics.
3. Support legislation that would require charter school contracts to stipulate how capital outlay funding and the assets they purchase will be recouped by the school district if the charter school should close or if the building is sold
4. Support any legislation that promotes diversity and nondiscrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity, nationality, and ability status in all publicly funded schools. Oppose any legislation that aims to give tax dollars to private schools that discriminate (in policy or practice) based on those criteria.
LEARN MORE

Reproductive Health & Justice
1. Defend against passage of any Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (“TRAP”) laws singling out the medical practices of doctors who provide abortions and imposing on them requirements that are different and more burdensome than those imposed on other medical practices.
2. Defend against further taxpayer funding of anti-abortion women’s health centers (also known as crisis pregnancy centers)
3. Defend against the passage of any barriers to abortion access, including gestational limits, limitations on types of procedures in abortion provision, expansion of state-mandated counseling, waiting periods, or parental involvement with minors seeking abortion care, and efforts to remove abortion access protections from the Florida Constitution.
LEARN MORE

Gun Violence Prevention
1. Support regulations concerning the purchase, ownership, safe storage for unattended guns and use of handguns and long guns that balance as nearly as possible individual constitutional rights with the general interest and welfare of the community.
2. Support changes in the law to allow local communities to enact ordinances for any type of gun safety measures in their jurisdiction.
3. Support expansion of mandated background checks and three-day waiting periods for ALL gun sales or transfers, including gun shows and unlicensed gun sales, and ensure the state provides all relevant records to the FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
4. Support a state ban on all semi-automatic assault-style weapons and large-capacity feeding devices.
5. Support changes in the law to make lying on a background check punishable by law.
LEARN MORE

LWVUS 2024 Legislative Priorities

To guide its work in Congress, the LWVUS Board adopts lobbying priorities every year. The goal is to maintain focus on issues of primary importance identified by LWVUS.

1. Campaign for Making Democracy Work® which includes advocating for voting rights, money in politics, protecting DC autonomy, and the 2030 Census.
2. Work to finalize publication of the Equal Rights Amendment in the US Constitution.
3. Approve strategic engagement, as needed, for watchlist issues: climate change, gun safety, immigration, and reproductive justice

VISIT LWV.org for more information.