SiX National Conference 2024

Come to build community with other legislative leaders by sharing strategies, discussing challenges, and identifying opportunities for the legislative sessions ahead.

Please note this session is only open to those with formal legislative leadership roles (e.g., Speaker, President, Majority/Minority Leader, Whip, Caucus Chair).

Leading while protecting religious equality means being able to communicate deep values, respecting the ways religion shapes constituents’ lives, and countering efforts to institutionalize a narrow religious ideology that threatens democracy. This session will be an interactive, skills-building workshop facilitated by religious leaders. Legislators will discuss how religion is manipulated to justify ideologies that exclude, harm, and limit freedom and equality. Then, legislators will discuss how religion can be a source of connection, meaning, and purpose. Next, legislators will highlight their core beliefs and values. Finally, legislators will be provided talking points, trained to “Say This, Not That,” and develop a step-by-step sequence for statements.

State legislators and advocates are on the frontlines of defending our democracy. But successfully defeating authoritarianism also requires worldbuilding strategies as much as it requires defensive tactics; we must actively build broad, multi-issue coalitions and build out an affirmative vision for a people-centered democracy. It’s our imperative, in this pivotal moment in our nation’s history, to show that states can deliver a clear path to a better future—one that will become irresistible to others when they see their own hopes and dreams in the future that we unfold. In this session, we’ll discuss what it will take for each of us to bring our vision into view and to collectively move towards a vibrant, multi-racial democracy.