After studying drug regulations in their public policy class,
Eric Gorin-Regan and Daniel Walter were hooked ““ on public
policy, that is.
One year later, their interest would take them and fellow
student Matt Nazareth to Washington, D.C., to lobby about drug
policy issues as part of a developing political student group
called Students for Sensible Drug Policy, or SSDP.
“We were excited about doing it,” Gorin-Regan said.
“(We) found that drug policy is the kind of subject where the
more you learn about it, the more you’re interested in
it.”
Though third-year political science students Gorin-Regan, Walter
and Nazareth are still in the process of making their club official
at UCLA, they went to the nation’s capitol in mid-November to
lobby about drug policy issues with congressmen.
The opportunity came after the three began working with
Professor Mark Kleiman on a Web site that gives up-to-date
information on drug policy.
The Web site caught the attention of Micah Daigle, the field
director of SSDP, who contacted the students and encouraged them to
start a chapter of the organization at UCLA during the summer.
Gorin-Regan, Walter and Nazareth traveled to Washington, D.C.,
for an SSDP national convention. There, the students met with
representatives from the offices of Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne
Feinstein as well as congressmen representing their own
districts.
Gorin-Regan met with Sam Farr of the 17th district, which
includes the Monterey Bay region, and Walter and Nazareth met with
Henry Waxman of the 30th district, which covers the UCLA area.
The students spoke to the congressmen about the Aid Elimination
Penalty enacted in 2000 as part of the Higher Education Act. The
provision denies financial aid to students who have drug
convictions, Walter said.
In early 2006, Congress amended the law so that only students
convicted while in college would lose their financial aid.
Gorin-Regan, Walter and Nazareth lobbied to repeal this provision
completely.
“This provision has so many negative effects,”
Walter said. “It hurts students (and) it’s fiscally
irresponsible.”
Gorin-Regan said he sees their trip to Capitol Hill as the
beginning of their relationship with congressmen.
“It’s a starting point. They now know who we are. We
are laying the groundwork for a future relationship,” he
said.
And Gorin-Regan, Walter and Nazareth are not alone in their
efforts. Other student political organizations have been going
beyond the UCLA campus recently, taking their interest in politics
to the state and national headquarters.
The Undergraduate Students Association Council has participated
in off-campus lobbying for years and plans to do so once again in
early 2007.
Delegates organized by the USAC office of the external vice
president plan to lobby in Sacramento in February with the
University of California Student Association and in Washington,
D.C., in March with the United States Students Association.
Tina Park, USAC external vice president, said the office lobbies
for a wide range of subjects yearly and that lately it has focused
mainly on financial aid and student fee issues.
Improving Dreams, Equality, Access and Success, a student group
with concerns regarding immigration, also lobbies in Sacramento to
support laws that help undocumented students.
IDEAS lobbies for a smaller range of issues, focusing on laws
dealing exclusively with immigration topics, said Matias Ramos, the
project director of IDEAS and a third-year Spanish and political
science student.
Last year, members of IDEAS went to Sacramento in late May to
support Senate Bill 160, which would have provided
institutionalized aid ““ financial aid that comes from schools
““ for undocumented students, he said. The bill passed in the
Senate but was vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger.
Ramos said members of IDEAS will most likely go to Sacramento
for Immigrant Day in May, a day when people from many different
immigrant rights groups lobby on behalf of immigrants.
“Also, if other immigration laws are introduced this year,
we will probably go and lobby in Sacramento for them,” he
said.
Regardless of the issues, most students agree that bringing
their political concerns outside the boundaries of the UCLA campus
is a valuable experience.
“I lobbied my first year at UCLA,” Park said.
“It was an amazing experience. It was almost liberating to
speak about issues that I felt really impacted me.”