We might need to make a tab solely for awesome pictures on this website…
More to come soon!!
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The UO College Democrats meet on Tuesdays at 6:00 pm in Lawrence 166!
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Weekly update – 1/17/12
Week 2!
Hey everyone! Hope you survived the first week of school. Just a reminder that we will be meeting on Tuesday at 6:00pm in Lawrence 166.
Next week (during week 3) we will be holding a special election for the position of secretary. If you are interested in running, please prepare a few
words for the group. This week our committees will be meeting to finalize schedules and budgets, and then we will have a discussion.
Topics include:
1) Huntsman Drops out of the GOP Race (NY Times)
2) Colbert Super Pac Attacks Romney (Washington Post)
3) Evangelicals support Santorum (NY Times)
4) Ban Ki-Moon: Syria Violence Must End (Huffington Post)
Can’t wait to see you on Tuesday (which will be the first day of classes this week)!
UPCOMING EVENTS
Movie Night with College Dems
What: Movie night! We will be watching Inside Job.
Where: TBA at the meeting
When: Friday, January 20th at 6:00pm
Facebook event page
Weekly update – 1/10/12
Welcome back!
Hope everyone had an awesome winter break. Our first meeting of the quarter will be on Tuesday at 6:00pm in Lawrence 166.
To start the new year off the right way, there will be delicious pizza (yuuum).
Our very own secretary Jake will be stepping down to accept a position with a campaign, so during week 3 we will hold a special election to elect a new secretary. If you are interested, please prepare a few words for the group.
Topics for this meeting include:
1) Unemployment drops (CBS)
2) Immigration Reform (Christian Science Monitor)
UPCOMING EVENTS
Canvassing for Kitty
What: Eugene city mayor Kitty Piercy will be kicking off her first campaign canvass event of 2012 and we’ll be knocking on doors in her own neighborhood –the Whiteaker! We’ll be meeting in the courtyard behind the New Day Bakery & World Cafe on Blair Blvd. for brief introductions and orientation. Hope to see you there rain or shine!
Where: New Day Bakery & World Cafe (449 Blair Blvd. Eugene, OR)
When: Saturday, January 14th at 11:00 am
Check it out on Facebook.
Girls Night Out –College Dems Style
Who: All college dems girls (and friends!)
What: Partying, of course
Where: Kathryne’s apartment (email kathryne@uoregon.edu for directions)
When: Sunday, January 15th at 5pm
Growing and Learning
This last quarter has been a learning experience for the College Democrats. A lot of new and enthusiastic members have joined the club, and the group as a whole has prospered. At the second meeting of the quarter, members of the College Democrats expressed interest in debating the College Republicans. On November 17th, the College Democrats and College Republicans held their first debate of the year. The debate was a huge success thanks to the Oregon Daily Emerald, who hosted the event, and to Godwin, Jason, and Andrew (our fearless debaters).
From left to right: Jason, Godwin, and Andrew.
At Pegasus after the debate!
While the debate was a great accomplishment, there is a lot of work ahead of us for this school year (and the upcoming elections in 2012). The College Democrats have introduced committees to encourage our members to get involved in politics and on campus. Currently, there are two committees: the welcoming committee and the events committee. A voter registration committee will be introduced towards the end of winter quarter.
The welcoming committee will work on recruiting students, welcoming new members, and distributing fliers around campus.
The events committee will focus on social events, philanthropic events, and political awareness events (such as movie screenings).
Any suggestions to improve the College Democrats can be sent to colleged@uoregon. Although there is a lot of work to be done, I have great confidence that the College Democrats will continue to be a very active and progressive group on campus.
Good luck on finals, and enjoy your winter break!
Kathryne
President
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Awesome Time at Intermingle
** NOTE: We forgot to put the meeting time in the email. We will be meeting at 6pm on Tuesday!
The College Dems tabled at Intermingle and it was a ton of fun! We only planned on having one President Obama, but luck would have it that another President Obama would show up.
We also met some really great people.
We’re really excited to get to know everyone on Tuesday (the 27th) at 6:00pm in Lillis 175. There will be a pizza and cake at our meeting, so hopefully that entices you to eat good food with great people.
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Congratulations to the New Exec Board!
The University of Oregon College Democrats are very excited to announce its new executive board for the upcoming school year. Kathryne was elected president of the UO College Democrats, and Elliot won the seat as vice president. Erik is filling the position as treasurer, and Jake is the new secretary. Our Fundraising Chairs are Emily and Natasha, and Godwin and Quintin are the new Recruitment Chairs.
In the last election season, the UO College Democrats played a crucial role in registering students at the university to vote. The UO College Democrats have been active in local and state politics, including canvassing for the Strong Schools Eugene school funding campaign, volunteering for Measures 66 and 67, and hosting a debate between John Kitzhaber and Bill Bradbury. The UO College Democrats are charted with the Lane County Young Democrats, and plan to help organize the youth for the upcoming election, as well.
The new executive board for the UO College Democrats has made it a top priority to create a strong bond with the Democratic Party of Lane County and the local community. The UO College Democrats also warmly welcome local and state representatives to their weekly meetings, which will resume again in September. In the upcoming academic year, the UO College Democrats would like to maintain a strong presence in the community, increase the visibility of Democrats and Democratic candidates at the University of Oregon, and recruit new members.
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Vote YES for Schools, Vote YES on Measure 20-182
If you vote in Oregon, you’ll soon receive a ballot that asks you to consider additional funding for education. Measure 20-182, on the May 17 ballot, seeks to raise $16.8 million for Eugene’s school districts so they can limit the increase in instructional days and restore cut furlough days. Why should you bother to vote yes?
For years, Eugene’s public schools have been asked to do more with less. They’ve seen $50 million cut from their budgets, teachers let go, class sizes increased and programs cut. This year, they’re faced with another $30 million in cuts — and they’re being asked to do more with less yet again.
It wasn’t so long ago that we were in high school. Imagine classes with 50 kids in them, some of the students sitting on windowsills and the floor. Imagine not having a full choice of courses because the school doesn’t have the teaching staff to provide them. Imagine having to learn material covered in a full-year curriculum on your own because you’re losing more than a full week of school to furlough days — days when the schools have to close because they can’t afford to pay teachers to come to work.
That’s what’s going to happen next year unless we find a way to raise more revenue as a stopgap measure to address some of these problems. Measure 20-182 will do that. Make no mistake, the districts will still have to make big cuts. But this measure minimizes the harm done to the most vulnerable: the students.
Furthermore, it’s temporary (just four years); it’s progressive and it doesn’t ask anyone making less than $11,000 a year to pay.
So when your ballots come in the mail, please take a moment to think about Measure 20-182. Take a moment to think about the high school students who will have to sit on windowsills. Consider seniors who may not be able to get into their top-choice colleges because they don’t meet the requirements. Or once they get into a college, having to take a bunch of remedial classes, which cost a bunch of money, because they didn’t cover the material in high school.
Think about the kids who may drop out because the courses that kept them coming to school — maybe band or art or a really good elective — have been dropped. Think about sixth graders not having social studies. Think about fewer foreign language options. Think about one kindergarten teacher in a classroom with 31 five-year-olds.
Oregon already has the second-shortest school year in the nation and the fourth-largest class sizes. Do we really want the state to sink to the very bottom on indicators like these? Or do we want to pitch in for a modest amount and help stem a crisis?
The people working with Strong Schools, Strong Eugene, the grassroots group working to pass Measure 20-182, ask you to do the right thing. Vote for education, vote for the kids, and vote for lending a helping hand in a time of need.
Vote yes on Measure 20-182.
Visit the Strong Schools Eugene website to help make a difference.
UO’s New Partnership
In the past few months, the University of Oregon College Democrats have been observing and learning about the New Partnership legislation proposed by President Lariviere regarding the governance of the University of Oregon, plus the suggestion for an endowment to keep UO’s funding stable.
Since the final draft of the White Paper in December 2010, two bills have quickly come before the Oregon legislature, SB 559 and SJR 20. The entire congressional delegation of our campus community, with the exception of Floyd Prozanski, are sponsors or co-sponsors of this legislation.
While we recognize the dire situation for higher education in this state, we are not entirely comfortable with the New Partnership as the best cure for our problems. We’d like to set forth several concerns with the New Partnership Proposal and the accompanying legislation.
1) The speed of enactment:
This act has been declared an “emergency”, and if passed, will be enacted by July 1st, 2011. This is less than 4 months from now, and just over 7 months since the initial New Partnership was revealed to the public.
For such an important and drastic step in reorganizing the public university system, it is difficult to justify such a short time for evaluating the governance and endowment proposals of the New Partnership. The proponents of the New Partnership (predominantly the UO Foundation and the University’s administration) have organized strongly behind their legislation. Current and future UO community members are conspicuously absent from the discussion, so debate has been limited.
The UO community and Oregonians at large have only just begun to educate themselves on the issues. We are concerned that the fast pace will leave no time for opposition or valuable criticism to be formulated. The College Dems and other involved groups are only just beginning to fully understand the implications of the New Partnership, yet it could be voted on within a month. The lack of informed debate within the impacted community concerns the College Dems and we think the “emergency” status of the New Partnership legislation should be reevaluated.
2) The governance board set-up:
The local governance board is not a bad idea in itself; we know that it is loosely based on the community college model in Oregon. The makeup of the UO Board of Directors is 7 governor-appointees (including one faculty and one student), one member of the State Board of Higher Education, one UO Foundation trustee, the UO president and 5 Board-appointees. We are concerned with the accountability mechanism of the Board. We are curious as to how this board will assuredly answer to both Oregon taxpayers and the community at the U of O. More people from the UO community, those with a direct connection like students and faculty, are needed on this board.
We feel that the accountability of this board is unclear and unsatisfactory. We would like greater public representation and responsibility to the UO community on this governance board.
3) Oregonians versus non-residents:
While we understand the dedication of the UO to educating residents of Oregon, it cannot be ignored that 41.2% of the student body is now non-residents and 7.5% are international students. There are now checks on tuition increases for residents and a 4-year guarantee for resident undergraduate tuition. What about the non-residents and international students? They bring needed diversity to this campus and obviously value the degrees they complete here. The UO is a wonderful school for a fairly reasonable price compared to private options for non-resident students. If tuition can be drastically increased for these populations, their presence here will be greatly diminished. We do not believe this is an acceptable outcome of the New Partnership legislation.
4) Public accountability:
As mentioned in the first two points, the speed of action and governance board setup both discount public discourse and accountability. The College Dems are concerned by this trend in the New Partnership and the UO administration’s other policies, specifically the Riverfront development project. Given the pattern of dismissing public input, we are apprehensive of quickly approving any huge proposal from the Lariviere administration.
The UO College Democrats urge our representatives to take a second look at SB 559 and SJR 20, keeping in mind those you represent in your home district. We believe the New Partnership should be reevaluated and edited to make it the best possible answer to the problems with higher education in Oregon. It is certainly possible to create a proposal that takes into account public opinion and input and is accountable to the State of Oregon and its flagship institution.
The UO College Democrats as a group has not yet taken a formal position on this issue.
Read on:
Daily Emerald Editorial
Oregonian Letter to the Editor
Posted in Oregon Politics
Tagged New Partnership, Oregon, SB 559, University of Oregon, UO College Dems
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Why the press picks on teachers (from Bend OR Bust)
Reposted with permission from Bend OR Bust, a blog by the father of one of our very own College Dems.
It’s been a longstanding tradition in corporate-owned media to bash teachers because they are some of the last Americans to belong to a union.
Unions are convenient scapegoats whenever the economy goes into a tailspin. Republicans and corporate media have been so successful at demonizing unions, that only about 10 percent of Americans now belong to one, down from a third of the workforce in the 1950s. By focusing on unions, Republicans and the media shift attention away from how corporations run America, which is the real problem.
But, un-reported in all this union-bashing of late is that it is mostly directed at teachers, the majority of whom are women.
You don’t see the same level of invective hurled at union police officers (except in Ohio) or firemen, the majority of which are men.
In fact, the anti-collective bargaining language in the Wisconsin bill excludes firemen and police officers. (In Ohio, though, all union workers are lumped together in that state’s bill. In order to endear himself to Ohio state troopers, the Republican governor referred to them as “idiots.”)
Along with the anti-union hysteria whipped up by the media and teabagging Republicans, we also have blatant sexism by Republicans and the media, which is also dominated by men.
Again, only a small fraction of American workers belong to unions. Reducing union pay and benefits, which is necessary during this Great Recession, won’t solve our financial problems. Once upon a time, the teaching profession was ridiculed for how little it paid. Now, it’s being blamed for bankrupting the country. Who knew that teachers would become the new Rockefellers?
States without unions have deficits just as bad as those with unions. If you keep taking money away from the many in the middle to give to the few at the top through tax breaks, you’ll always have deficits. Also, the public has been conditioned to have what it wants without having to pay for it.
Is it more responsible to tax and spend like Democrats of old or borrow and spend like Republicans and new Democrats?
But, enough of that. Let’s get back to teacher-bashing.
The canard that unions prevent school districts from firing ineffective teachers is always trotted out when teacher-bashing revs up.
But, the other under-reported story by the media is that the main problem with American education is not at the teacher level, but at the mid-management level, namely principals. Don’t believe me? Check out this opinion piece from a man who is not in the union camp at all.
Schools fail to get rid of ineffective teachers because of poor management, not because of union interference. It’s hard to find good managers/principals who are willing to be squeezed between district administration and the teachers and the students and the parents like a pimple on a high-schooler’s forehead. Would you want that job? Okay, for $90,000 a year, I could handle it for a couple of years. And, I still get the occasional pimple.
The upshot of all this teacher-bashing is that it will weaken, not strengthen, education in America. Most teachers don’t mind if their pay or benefits get cut during hard times. But, comparing them to the dregs of society, such as Wall Street types, goes a bit too far. Teachers are ticked off and even the best ones are leaving the profession. Diane Ravitch, who supported “No Child Left Behind” but now recants that stance, defends teachers in this recent article.
But, why spend time defending teachers when there is always Charlie Sheen to kick around.
Democratic Prospects for the 2012 Senatorial Elections
Democratic Prospects for the 2012 Senatorial Elections
In 2010, the Democrats lost six Senate seats and held onto control with 53 seats (including Senators Lieberman and Sanders). There were 37 seats up for re-election – the 34 class three senators’ seats and 3 special elections. Of those, 19 were previously held by Democrats and 18 were previously held by Republicans.
In 2012, there are 33 seats up for election. This time, Democrats must defend 23 seats while Republicans need only defend 10. The numbers clearly strongly favor Republicans. To add to the Democrats’ worries, they will be losing 4 senators (Bingaman (D-NM), Conrad (D-ND), Lieberman (I-CT), Webb(D-VA)) due to retirements. The only Republicans that have announced plans to retire thus far are Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas.
It would appear that the Democrats face an unhill battle after just looking at those numbers, so we’ll look a little deeper into how 2012 might play out.
First, lets see the states that Republicans are defending. Next to each state is the percentage of that state’s vote that Barack Obama received in 2008. Results from a presidential electionn four years prior is not necessarily the best measure by which to predict the outcome of a Senate race, but it gives a rough picture of the state’s electorate. A * denotes an open seat.
Republicans defending:
Arizona – 45.1% *
Indiana – 49.9%
Maine – 57.7%
Massachusetts – 62.0%
Mississippi – 43.0%
Nevada – 55.1%
Tennessee – 41.8%
Texas – 43.7% *
Utah – 34.4%
Wyoming – 32.7%
At first glance, the obvious opportunities for a Democratic pick-up would seem to be in Massachusetts, Maine (Olympia Snowe might be vulnerable to a conservative primary challenger), and possibly Nevada (which just re-elected Harry Reid).
The Democratic seats, using the same format:
California – 61.0%
Conneticut – 60.7% *
Delaware – 61.9%
Florida – 51.0%
Hawaii – 71.8%
Maryland – 61.2%
Michigan – 57.4%
Minnesota – 54.1%
Missouri – 49.3%
Montana – 47.3%
Nebraska – 41.6%
New Jersey – 57.3%
New Mexico – 56.9% *
New York – 62.1%
North Dakota – 44.6% *
Ohio – 51.5%
Pennsylvania – 54.7%
Rhode Island – 63.1%
Vermont – 67.8%
Virginia – 52.6% *
Washington – 57.7%
West Virginia – 42.6%
Wisconsin – 56.2%
Overall, this list looks fairly safe. Ignoring all other factors, we’d expect the Democrats to have the most trouble in Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, and West Virginia. These states will likely have very close races and could stand to benefit from President Obama’s coattails if he can increase Democratic turnout in 2012 like he did in 2008.
Again, this simple analysis ignores the strength of the candidates, the strength of the economy in Novemeber, 2012, and any local issues that might affect elections. That being said, Democrats will largely be on the defensive next time around. They have more seats to defend and fewer opportunities to pick up extra seats. With this in mind, we’ll consider two last things.
First, the definition of a “majority” in the Senate varies because in the event of a 50/50 tie, the Vice-President can cast deciding votes. This means that if President Obama wins, Democrats can lose up to 3 seats and keep control. But if Obama loses, the Democrats will have to lose no more than 2 seats.
Second, in order to counter increasing spending from outside groups on the Republican side, Senate Democrats will be establishing the “Majority PAC”. This “super PAC” will be structered in such a way that it will be able to raise unlimited amounts of money just as Karl Rove’s American Crossroads did in 2010. Super PACs do, however, need to disclose their donors. Another Democratic group, the Patriot Majority PAC, is organized as a 501(c)(4) and therefore does not need to disclose its donors. This PAC takes advantage of the Citizens United court decision that caused the Democrats so much grief in the midterms.
This blog post was contributed by Jake Foster.