BRUINS' LOBBYING GOES BEYOND CAMPUS BOUNDS

From Drug Regulations to Immigration Rights, Students Promote Their
Causes Across Country

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."