Members of ASUW, ASUW President Michael Rotellini, traveled to Cheyenne on Tuesday to meet with the senate and discuss legislation.
ASUW meets with the Senate around January every year, but was late this year due to the introduction of a new bill on their list of talking points.
“The Senate and the House meet every year so usually we try to meet with them in between those sessions,” ASUW Director of Governmental Relations Chris Ryan said. “We are a little late this year because we have been waiting on the progress of HB 136, which is campus carry.”
HB 136, titled “Campus Carry,” was introduced on Jan. 12 and has already passed House of Representatives, an will now make its way to senate.
“There could be some positives to letting students carry concealed weapons on campus, but I do not think they outweigh the negative risks,” UW student Anthony Rodriguez said. “The tradeoff is not even close.”
Though HB 136 did not end up being placed on the docket for the meeting yesterday, Ryan said ASUW discussed the bill with state senators.
“We spoke to senators from all over the state, and I feel that we may have made an impact,” he said. “We will start communicating with the Governors office to get our opinions known just in case that this does pass the senate.”
HB 136 is set to be introduced to the senate today, with two additional readings coming in the next few weeks.
In addition to HB 136, ASUW discussed two bills pertaining to UW funding.
“There are two issues going before Conference Committee,” Ryan said. “One is a Senate File that would cut about 50 million dollars from a facilities endowment for a new science building and the other would cut about two million from block funding.”
The endowment is for a new agriculture building which is still in the planning process. The facility would serve for agricultural research and would replace the old building located by the classroom building.
“Right now we do a lot of ground-breaking research in an outdated facility over in the old building,” Ryan said. “A brand new building is best for continuing that, so if we lose that 50 million dollars it would kill the project and if we lose it, it is never coming back.”
ASUW meets face-to-face with the senate every year. .
“Anyone who takes the time to go face-to-face with legislators, it does mean a lot,” Ryan said. “I think they are very receptive to our concerns.”
ASUW President Michael Rotellini was unavailable for comment at this moment, we will update our website this week with his comments.
