Letter

Dear Editor,

I am currently enrolled to take college courses for dual credit for high school. When I graduate from high school I plan to stay on at North Lake to finish off what would be my first semester of university classes. I plan to major in political science or more probably political economy.

As a result of my taking a government class here (2301 with Gabriel Bach), I have since decided that becoming at least more aware of local and state politics — if not more active in them — would be a good decision considering my eventual major. It was with this in mind that I decided to sort of jump into the Austin lobby of April 13. Unfortunately for me, I did not know what to expect from such an event and was quite unprepared for my experience.

I realize it was my own fault for not understanding what the lobby was actually about and, although I agree with the “demands” of the unions represented, I felt very much out of place for two major reasons. 1) I do not belong to a union; 2) I am not a state employee.

Considering that that is who the lobby was for, I felt like I did not belong. However, my friends and I found our own reasons to cheer and rant and wave signs. My best friend found a sign for MHMR. He chose this sign because his family was affected by the decisions to cut funding. My other friend found a poster for her father’s union and began to chant, and I chanted for another group whose primary concern was to have the Legislature read its bills more carefully before signing them.

The lobby itself seemed at the beginning to be very organized, with team leaders and organization by district. They had public speakers and a fairly orderly march around the capitol, and had even set aside time to talk to the appropriate state representatives about the issues. But as the lobby wore on, I began to see that this lobby was little more than a slightly organized protest rally and that the planners — though they had set aside time to talk to the representatives — did not either inform the representatives that they were coming to talk to them or know that state congress was in session the entire day of the rally. The end result was a lot of marching noise, and then when it came time for talking to the reps and getting things done, all of the reps were in session and only a few of the representatives that my group went to see had left their assistants to speak with us.

All in all, my experience at the capitol was rather time consuming and seemed less effective than I would have hoped, but I have resolved that next time I will attend lobbies that address specific issues that affect me and try to work even harder to make some kind of difference. This experience has only told me that things like this need the help of those who are interested, especially those who are disappointed with past results.

Freedom of speech and assembly is a constitutional right and I intend to use mine.

—David Bradshaw