Last year, the Graduate and Professional Student Association Council created funding and incentives for a legislative graduate and professional student advocacy team. Two months ago, GPSA Council Chairwoman Lissa Knudsen assembled that team. The team she assembled represented diverse backgrounds and skill sets including information technology, law, public relations, bill drafting, research design, lobbying, community organizing and accounting. The diverse set of skills paid off because for two months the team successfully advocated on behalf of graduate students during the state legislative session that ended last week.
The legislative advocates originally had two goals: to change a Children, Youth and Families Department rule specifically preventing graduate students from getting a child care subsidy and to find funding to expand the UNM Children's Campus, a quality day care center for UNM students, faculty and staff with a waiting list more than two years long. The secondary goal was for group members to learn from hands-on experience how to be a successful citizen lobby at the New Mexico State Legislature.
As the legislative session rolled in, it became obvious that child care would not be the only issue the legislative advocates would want to tackle. The first issue to pop up was the loss of funding of the UNM ethnic centers.
For this, the group organized the Freedom Ride 2009, which took UNM students who were concerned about ethnic center funding to the Roundhouse. On the Rail Runner train ride to Santa Fe, members of the legislative team gave a short crash course to other students on lobbying. The group held a brief news conference at the Roundhouse, and then students went to meet with their
legislators. Thanks to this small group of engaged students, several sympathetic legislators and UNM lobbyist Marc Saavedra, the ethnic centers missed getting the ax for 2009.
Led by Knudsen, various members of the team met with CYFD leadership and came to an agreement with the department that it would change the rule preventing graduate students from getting child care assistance. Members of the team went on help design and execute a needs survey and fiscal impact analysis. This is where research design expertise came into play. At the time of this writing, results are not available, but Knudsen said she expects the rule to be changed before the beginning of next semester.
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The team quickly realized there was no funding available this year to expand the Children's Campus. Everyone was feeling the pinch of statewide revenue shortfalls. So instead of seeking capital outlay funding, members of the team drafted - and Sen. Linda Lopez sponsored - Senate Memorial 65. The memorial creates a task force to look for the best funding mechanism. The team aggressively lobbied and, with the help of Lopez, got the memorial passed. Along the way, the team was able to get articles and several letters to the editor in the Daily Lobo and a feature story in the Weekly Alibi published about the issue. The next task for the GPSA will be to get involved with the task force to find the best and quickest way to fund the Children's Campus extension without increasing student fees.
Another memorial that passed thanks to Knudsen, with the support of the GPSA Council legislative team, was House Memorial 58. That memorial creates a task force to study the needs of breast-feeding student mothers and make recommendations to schools.
It wasn't all lobbying and public relations for the legislative team. Team members used their in-situ legislative expertise and
knowledge to help other students who wanted citizen lobby experience. For example, one member of the team helped to kill a bill that would have excluded the UNM School of Architecture and Planning from having a member on a statewide architecture board. He did that by advising architecture students how to find the bill, how to follow the bill, how to target a legislative e-mail writing, letter writing and phone calling campaign and how to testify in front of a committee.
The learning experience for the team wasn't just about success stories. One of the bills the team advocated for would have allowed citizens to register to vote during the early voting period - the 28 days before Election Day. The team thought that this bill would increase the number of UNM students voting because students have the difficult decision of whether to register to vote in New Mexico or to vote in their home state. That bill (House Bill 52), championed by B. Lee Drake, got stuck in a Senate committee and did not pass.
Overall, the members of the GPSA Council legislative team were pretty tired and pretty upbeat after the session was over. Team members gained skills, made friends and put forward a successful lobbying effort on behalf of all UNM graduate and professional students.
There are no current plans to create a new GPSA Council legislative advocacy team for 2010, but two of its members, Drake and I, and team leader Knudsen, are running for leadership positions in the UNM GPSA for 2010. Drake and Knudsen are running for president, and I am running unopposed for GPSA council chair. No matter how the election turns out, it is quite likely that 2009 will not be the last time graduate and professional students wander the hallowed halls of the New Mexico Roundhouse to lobby for our own.
Danny Hernandez is a graduate student at UNM.
