There’s just too much information in the world, and not all of it gets in the news.
I wrote an article for Tuesday’s Spartan Daily about a campus rally in support for an oil severance tax that would fund California’s public higher education.
It covered a counter-protest that happened at the rally, and it talked about the bill itself, but I had far more information than I had time and space to include.
So I’m going to take a nontraditional route for a reporter: I’m going to use this newfangled Internet contraption to expand on a story already in print.
First, the bill. If you didn’t know already, AB 656 is a bill that would tax oil companies 9.9 percent to extract oil in California, and it would give that money to state-funded colleges and universities, according to the bill.
State Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, the author of the bill, said he estimates the bill will hit the floor of the Legislature in early 2010.
He said he wanted to rally students in the California State University system to write their representative to pass the bill.
This week he is visiting seven other CSU campuses in a “week of action” to gain support for the bill, he said.
The bill has support from California Faculty Association, the CA State Student Association, the UC Student Association and other teachers’ unions from around the state, according to a summary of the bill released from Torrico’s office.
Opponents of the bill include the California Chamber of Commerce, California Independent Petroleum Association, Cal-Tax and the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, according to the summary.
Footage of the rally has also surfaced on YouTube. Andrae Macapinlac, the vice president of Students for Quality Education, speaks to the crowd in this clip.
Leigh Wolf, a conservative student who protested the rally, confronted Torrico after he finished speaking to the crowd and recorded it here.
My goal is not to take sides but to give as much information about the diverse viewpoints students have on campus.
You don’t have to agree with those viewpoints, but it’s my job as a journalist to present them factually so you can decide for yourself.
Suzanne Yada
-Staff Writer
1 Comment
October 17, 2009 at 2:34 am
What bugs me more than not knowing how I should feel about this bill, is that students at SJSU are so quick to jump on seemingly good sounding issues that they don’t fully comprehend. I will say that I don’t trust my future with a mob of students that are so quick to jump on any bandwagon.