By Hailey Murphy
While many of us were enjoying our three day weekend and honoring Martin Luther King Jr., a group of 80 students traveled to Olympia for Western Lobby Day.
Lobby Day is a yearly event in which students meet with legislators to lobby on a number of important issues. These issues are chosen by the Legislative Affairs Council, a committee that works all fall quarter long to draft the legislative agenda.
““We brainstorm within the committee, and then we write proposals, which are a couple of pages long and are pretty in-depth,” said Ana Ramirez, ASVP for Governmental Affairs and chair of the LAC. “[Then] we take our proposals and vote on them as a committee on what we would like to see, if we would like to approve those proposals so they can turn into agenda items. Once those proposals are finished, we write the little paragraphs and the bullet points on the paper copy of the agenda that we hand out to legislators.”
This year’s agenda items included increasing civic education in K-12, offering support for survivors of sexual assault, granting more financial support for undocumented students, taking away barriers that prevent people from voting, improving sexual education in K-12, increasing the revenue that goes towards higher education and allowing unionization for undergraduate employees.
Lobby Day attendees were trained on each individual agenda item a day prior to the meetings, as well as given packets of information to help them succeed, according to LAC member Jevne Meyers. After the initial training, students got into groups of three to four to prepare their presentations.
“This year I was asked to be a group leader, which was both fun and a wonderful learning experience,” said Meyers. “I mostly encouraged my group to organize their presentations thoughtfully and take note of the items they had a personal interest in. Lobbying is effective when a person is genuine about the topic at hand.”
On Lobby Day itself, students attended about four meetings with legislators, according to Ramirez. These meetings lasted from fifteen to thirty minutes, and it was during those meetings that students urged lawmakers to incite change in the state.
Students lobbied for a tuition freeze, for an increase in the estate tax, for more specialized personnel to deal with sexual violence and for the right of undocumented students to work on college campuses regardless of their DACA status. For K-12 education, lobbyists advocated for comprehensive sexual education that’s less heteronormative and civics education that encourages engagement from younger generations.
“I do have a special spot in my heart for civics education, because in my senior year of high school, I took a civics class– because it was required– and that’s where I found out that you only have to be a U.S. citizen for 7 years to be a congressperson,” said Ramirez. “And when I found that out, I decided that’s what I [wanted] to do.”
Legislators seemed to be rather responsive to these issues.
“The legislators and their staff who I met with seemed very interested in civics education and Voter Rights & Access, which kind of go hand in hand. They all agreed it’s important for younger demographics to be educated on government & hopefully want to become more politically engaged later on,” said Meyers.
In fact, legislators have been rather responsive to Western’s Lobby Day in the past. According to Ramirez, their lobbying for a fully-funded state need grant, despite not being implemented, resulted in almost seven hundred more Washington students receiving the grant. Additionally, Western received a million dollars for initiatives that’ll improve student success, such as expanding the counseling center, the tutoring center, academic advising and more.
But even when legislators aren’t responsive, not all is lost. Meyers says that every meeting is a step forward.
“Even legislators who are very skeptical of certain agenda items turn out to be great learning experiences,” said Meyers. “They enjoy letting you know why they take the stance they do, which better informs us for how to adjust our agenda or even how to move forward with promoting that item. I guess overall, lobbying is all about knowing your audience and also having a tuned perception of the meeting’s tone as you go along.”
While the future of current agenda items is uncertain, what’s certain is that Western Lobby Day has and will continue to make changes for students. In fact, according to Ramirez, Western has the biggest day of all the universities.
“[Western’s] continuous involvement in Olympia and the way students represent our school stands out,” said Meyers.