"Call St. Paul!" Action Alert Page
Stand Down for now - But be ready!
The MN Legislature is out of session until January, but the opportunity to talk to legislatures may be coming to your door! With the November elections coming, candidates will be making the rounds, with some of the more ambitious ones even going door to door to introduce themselves and find out what is important to their potential constituents. If they knock at your door, tell them how important a state Massage Therapy law would be to you. Our bill will have a new bill number (that has not been assigned yet) but the issues are the same.
The following is information from the 2010 session. It is being left up here for informational purposes.
How to Talk to a Legislator video
Email or letter template
A phone call carries more weight than an email which tend to get lost in the shuffle, but an email is certainly better than nothing at all. Attached HERE we have a template for an email you can send to a legislator to voice your support for this bill. THIS TEMPLATE HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH A LINK TO THE BILL'S PAGE ON THE STATE WEBSITE - PLEASE UPDATE YOUR TEMPLATE IF YOU HAVE BEEN USING THE OLDER ONE.
Who Represents YOUR voice in St. Paul?
You can verify who your legislator is with THIS LINK to the website for the MN state legislature. When you open the link above, just type in your home address and you will be shown who your legislators are. Have they heard from you?
Other Ideas to share for why you support this law, and why they should too
It can be a good idea to share an idea or two of why you support the legislation when you call a legislator.
Ideas about OUR BILL ...
- Clients can know that practitioners with the credential have been checked out for relevant criminal history and can then choose based on quality of work
- Our state is one of only seven with no state-wide regulation of massage therapists
- City ordinances are too expensive, overly restrictive, and in many cases demeaning, (if you've ever had to turn down business because you didn't hold a city license in the city where a client was asking you to go, this is a great thing to share)
- MN League of Cities supports legislation to take massage regulation off the plate of the cities
- Currently new clients don't know the difference between your practice and that of someone practicing illegitimate massage
- No enforceable laws in MN to hold those who step out of bounds accountable like there are in 43 other states and the District of Columbia (MN’s CAM Law enforcement was unallotted.)
- Our bill is "budget neutral" and self-funded
- This is according to the standard means for new credentials to be paid for in MN
- Removes the hesitancy some potential referring providers might have of referring to an "unlicensed" practitioner; fear of what Journal of the American Medical Association calls "vicarious liability"
- Increases the public's access to care by doing away with the local ordinances for those with the state credential
- Has a Grandfathering clause to allow those not meeting the educational criteria to establish their expertise and get a state credential
- Has an exemptions clause to make it completely clear that this law will not effect practitioners in related fields nor will it require a massage credential of them – they can continue to practice just as they always have with no interruption
- Voluntary nature of the bill minimizes the risk of "unintended negative consequences" on other practitioners
