Representatives of the Associated Students of Madison Legislative Affairs Committee and United Council of UW Students, a statewide student lobbying organization, met Monday to discuss strategies to lobby for a student-friendly state biennial budget.
Vice President of UC Beth Huang outlined plans to facilitate a state-wide calling day Feb. 14 followed by a conference and lobby day the weekend of Feb. 23.
According to Huang, this approach will allow students to be both proactive and reactive to Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal, which will be released around Feb. 18.
“Our major push for the semester is to get lots of students to tell their stories to legislators,” Huang said. “It’s different when students go into the Capitol because we can actually tell our stories for ourselves and back up any numbers … so that legislators can actually see a face from their district tell them why the UW System matters so much and what their college education means to them.”
ASM Legislative Affairs Chair Dan Statter introduced a similar plan to send budget packets to members of the Joint Finance Committee that will contain a cover letter from the committee, budget priorities passed by ASM Student Council and letters highlighting students’ personal experiences with rising tuition.
“The reason we do what we do is for those stories that we can communicate,” Statter said. “Tuition continuing to increase keeps students, Wisconsin residents, our neighbors, [and] our classmates in high school, out of this institution.”
The committee also discussed continued progress and lobbying efforts for the Responsible Action and 18+ campaigns, which began last fall.
