H -°, L 7° | Tomorrow: 
H 17°, L 4°MPOWER candidates have been organizing around numerous student issues, and in recent weeks we’ve had several major victories for students in Madison. MPOWER is not a registered student organization, but as individuals we have contributed to each of these victories, and we wanted to make sure you had heard about them:
Student Aid and Healthcare Reform passed! Multiple MPOWER candidates lobbied legislators to pass student aid reform and healthcare reform, including four candidates who traveled to Washington, DC to advocate for these bills. This historic legislation means that government subsidies to banks that have been swindling students will now be invested in the government’s Direct Loan program, which means that more than $6 billion will now be going directly to students instead of banks. With the College Democrats of Madison, Beth Huang helped organize Healthcare Week last October, and now that healthcare reform has passed, students will be able to stay on their parents’ insurance until they’re 26, which is particularly important given that our age group consistently has the highest unemployment rate.
Support for Student-Worker Solidarity! Members of the Student Labor Action Coalition, including five MPOWER SLACkers (Sam Stevenson, Jonah Zinn, Jeni Le, Beth Huang and Tina Trevino-Murphy), escalated direct actions throughout the year, culminating in a major rally — the next day UW-Madison became the first university in the country to cut our licensing contract with Nike in response to their egregious violations of workers’ rights in Honduras and India. SLAC persevered for over eight months, resulting in this major victory for students, workers and our university.
The Campus Women’s Center received an historic grant! Jessi Indresano and Tina Trevino-Murphy wrote an operations grant that made history — the CWC was awarded $33,100, which by far exceeded the previous record of $8,800. Through the efforts of over 100 CWC volunteers and supporters and these two candidates, the CWC now has the funds to continue providing their services to campus next year.
Affordable Textbooks Campaign! Three MPOWER candidates and Academic Affairs Committee members, Peter Lorenz, Zach Ivins and Jonah Zinn, have expanded ASM’s work on textbooks beyond the biannual “Textbook Swap” and created an active grassroots campaign. Currently, they’re in the process of forming a new shared governance committee that would bring faculty, students and staff together to address the rising cost of textbooks.
And now new issues are coming up in the state and federal legislatures — with the passage of the state DREAM Act we are losing money every year that the federal DREAM Act is not passed. Legislation is currently being proposed in the state Legislature to help students get jobs after graduation and to increase the impact of the student vote in Wisconsin. As we raise the issue of campus safety, MPOWER candidates are working on the annual Take Back the Night march to the State Capitol on April 29. The fight is not over. MPOWER has proven that we can make major progress on important student issues, and we will not stop when we are elected to ASM.
Molly Bryers, Beth Huang & Tina Trevino-Murphy of MPOWER
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“Student Aid and Healthcare Reform passed!”
WOW! Thanks MPOWER for getting health care passed! If only MPOWER was around in ‘94 we’d have had universal health care long ago…you truly are the saviors of us all. Keep up the good work!
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I’m curious if this is a joke?
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Holding some health care events in Madison, where Rep. Baldwin was already voting “yes,” had little if any impact on passing national health care legislation. And a few lobby visits doesn’t just automatically grant you a “victory” on these bills. I feel that is quite conceited of MPOWER.
The Campus Women’s Center received the “historic” operations grant not because of their “100 volunteers,” but because they were denied GSSF eligibility. I suppose this is a victory for students because CWC’s former GSSF funding was taking much more seg fee dollars from students. Keeping CWC (and other groups that shouldn’t receive budgets of $100,000+) to the operations grants is keeping more money in the pockets of students and making college more affordable for all of us.
Calling the creation of a new shared governance committee (which has not yet been formed and will mostly lack the ability to lower textbook costs) an “active grassroots campaign” undermines your understanding of grassroots campaigning.
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Glad I am the first to comment on this. KAREN SANCHEZ has been spearheading the shared governance committee this semester as the focus of her intern project. Jonah is especially involved as chair of the committee and Zach and I have provided our support and ideas.
IP hash: 6f6acbae
So far, you’ve exposed yourself as left-wing loonies who care more about making junkets to DC that support putting our generation in debt than trying to improve the academic quality of the UW. Go back to SLAC and don’t come back, you hacks.
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Keep fighting, ladies. MPOWER is more than a breath of fresh air. This is the way both student and non-student government should act. Your supporters are ready to make progress happen!
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Alright, we’re going to take a quick look at the particular blends of wool that MPOWER is trying to pull over students’ eyes with this bullshit.
1: Student Aid and Healthcare Reform Passed! -Correlation=/=causality. Tina Trevi�o Murphy HAPPENED to be in DC during a USSA event the weekend that Congressman Obey brought the gavel down on health reform. The fact that students were in town when SAFRA passed is entirely coincidental. Democrats needed it in the reconciliation bill because it cuts the federal deficit. SAFRA was stripped of some damned good ideas before it was actually voted on. By no means a total victory, and by no means the work of Ms. Murphy.
2: MPOWER SLACkers:
-“Sweeping a problem under the rug.” I ask you, HOW is it a good idea to knowingly elect five members of the same interest group to a governing body? This is the same tactic as the Mobil board of directors running for Congress in Texas. Will they really keep students’ best interests in mind, or is their ideology going to take precedence? What they claim as “Student-Worker solidarity” is by no means something intrinsic to the states of studentness and workerness. This is a manufactured relationship that is going to be the focus of MPOWER legislation.
3: The CWC.
180 Reversal: Holy shit. $33,000 for a single group which doesn’t provide enough services to receive a comprehensive budget? How is it a victory for students to be sinking student money into programs like babysitting, which students are ALREADY PAYING FOR through the Childcare Tuition Assistance Program? Really, MPOWER? Really?
Further, part of your PLATFORM is to fund the CWC? What the hell happened to viewpoint neutrality? YOU CAN’T GUARANTEE FUNDING TO ANY GROUP! Doing so is a violation of the First Amendment.
Affordable Textbooks Campaign:
Severe amplification: Here’s the kicker. Jonah Zinn claims this as a victory. How did he expand the textbook swap, you ask? He asked the Student Council for money to buy barcode scanners and another Council member wrote a nifty piece of software which will let ASM use them. By no means a great victory for ASM. It will make the logistics easier. No grassroots organizing, picket signs, or bullhorns required. He asked for some money. Further, the creation of a textbooks committee? This requires working a piece of paper through student, staff, and faculty legislatures. By no means is this a tall order, and by no means should this be the sum total of what Jonah Zinn did as Academic Affairs chair this year. Where are the tangible results, Jonah?
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Maybe if Kurt Gosselin spent half as much time reading the bylaws as he does criticizing people making real change on student issues, maybe he wouldn’t be taking such a massive stipend increase and be the subject of a student judiciary suit.
Womp womp.
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This LOE shows how irresponsible Mpower truly is. I can not believe that you are taking credit for student aid and health care reform passing. A couple of you lobbying in reality does not make a difference. You and your misguided group are using this to help get elected. Individuals who act like this should not be representing students.
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ROFL!!!!
Wow, you guys(wait is that PC?) are a bunch of nut jobs!