Who knew you’d meet “crazy-liberal-democrats” at UC Santa Cruz???

Of the three classes that I’m taking, one of the most interesting is titled “the making of environmental policy”. It’s quite an interesting class taught by one of california’s top anti nuclear advocates. The class goes over everything, from how to get information that the government doesn’t want you to have to how to make and change policy. Recently, we’ve been talking about our “big project” which is to create a bill and submit it either to the state or congress. In order to help with the process, our professor brought in former speaker pro tem of the state assembly, Fred Keeley. He went over how he drafted and passed the Marine Life Managment Act of 1996. It was really cool to see how our state system works from the inside out. After class, I walked down with mr. Keeley and spoke to him about bicycle legislation and how we can reverse the damage done in the transportation bill in the house of representatives last week. His ideas: try to get to it from the state side first. Pretty good idea if you ask me. I’m planning on going to Sacramento with my dad this year to do just that. I can’t wait!