Spring Break
Student Action Team sets voter registration, lobby goals
Heather Holm/Student Government Editor
Issue date: 9/9/08 Section: News
|
The Student Action Team will also share a booth with Student Government at Pantherpalooza promoting their goals for the season.
Marshella Stinson, who was a member from last year, talked about her experience going to Springfield last year.
"We went up there to push the higher education bill to try and get more money for education," said Stinson, a senior political science major.
She was also a deputy registrar for Student Government.
She said a lot of people came to lobby in general.
And Student Body President Levi Bulgar said the Student Action Team usually goes to Springfield twice, once each semester.
This semester, Eric Wilber, student executive vice president and chair of Student Action Team, said the Student Action Team would go to Springfield on either Nov. 9 or 12.
Bobbie Mitchell, vice chair of Student Action Team, said it would be easier to lobby in Springfield after Election Day on Nov. 4.
Mitchell said he does not want to lose voter registration steam after November, though.
"If we want to push laws for Eastern, we will look like a bigger force if we all vote," he said.
Bulgar talked about the Shake Initiative, which was a program initiated at the University of Connecticut.
"If students registered to vote, they each got a small Frosty from Wendy's," Bulgar said. "This collectively with some other programs increased voter registration by 900 percent."
Since Student Action Team works with voter registration, the group will sponsor Rock the Vote as well. This will take place Wednesday, Sept. 17 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
"There will be pins, stickers and wristbands," Wilber said. "The stickers will say, 'I am registered to Vote, Are You?'"
Seven people, along with three executive members of Student Government, were appointed to Student Action Team on Monday night.
These members will be brought up and approved by the senate at the Student Senate meeting on Wednesday night. Three members within the group were announced as the legislative action chair, legislative research chair and voter registration chair.
"These chairs oversee these different committees," Wilber said. "The legislative action chair works on lobbying skills and sets the date for when the group will go over to Springfield. The legislative research chair researches legislation coming up and gives it to the legislative action chair."
Wilber said the legislative research chair also works with the budget, and the voter registration chair was self-explanatory.
Heather Holm can be reached at 581-7942 or at haolm@eiu.edu.
The Daily Eastern News encourages on-topic, civil discussion on its articles posted online. It is our policy not to screen comments before they are posted or edit them after they are posted. However, we reserve the right to remove comments that are off-topic, malicious, libelous or include excessive foul language. The DEN also reserves the right to turn off all comments on any story it deems necessary.
Comments violating copyright law will also be removed.
Users who repeatedly violate this policy will be banned from commenting.
If you have any questions on our comment policy or wish to report a comment that you feel violates these standards, please e-mail a link to the article to our Online Editor at DENNews.com@gmail.com.
Be the first to comment on this story