Yesterday, more than 1300 LGBT New Yorkers and our allies went to Albany to lobby lawmakers on issues that are most important to our community. To all attendees: please use this space to leave your impressions of the day--what you liked, what you learned or how you feel that you made a difference. And if you couldn't be there, feel free to add your comments here, too.
On behalf of the Pride Agenda, thank you to everyone who came and made E&J Day 2008 the largest-ever lobby day for our community.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
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Hobart and William Smith (HWS) Colleges PRIDE Alliance would like to thank the Empire State Pride Agenda for all of its work in organizing Equality and Justice Day. As the Co-President of the HWS PRIDE Alliance I thought that the addition of the college caucus was an excellent idea and I am grateful that I was able to co-facilitate it with Rebecca Newberry from CampusOUT (Rebecca, you’re amazing!). Even though college representation was unprecedented, I think that if E&J were moved up another week more college students would be able to attend. Next week is finals week for many colleges and universities and a large number of students could not attend this E&J Day due to the finals crunch. Lastly, my State Senator’s Chief of Staff had a few interesting comments. He told me that most bills that would affect the entire state had very little chance of passing on the Senate side of the legislature when introduced by a minority member. While he admitted that it wasn’t a fair system and that people who live in Democratic State Senate districts or even Republican Assembly districts are hurt by the system, he said “that’s just the way Albany works.” Since working in a bipartisan manner just doesn’t seem to appeal to Senator Joe Griffo we moved on to a few other points. I pointed out to his Chief of Staff that the Republican majority in the Senate has been steadily decreasing in the past several elections. He said that I was right, that it was entirely possible for the Republicans to lose the majority in the next election and that if that happened he hoped partisanship was no longer an issue in the State Senate. Let’s see how the elections play out—I’m pretty sure that if the Republicans lose the majority in the Senate we’ll see a few of them support bills because it’s the right thing to do and not because the party told them what action to take.
dear Emprie state pride
Agende I had a wonderful
Time at the rally. A lot
of people showrd up I can't wait for the next
one.Go pride!
craftielouie@yahoo.com
Loree brown troy new york!
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