Public Policy 2011-12: Implementing the Proposal

Louise Edwards
Students Demanding Change
State Capitol

Representative Davnie is the chief author of the Safe Schools for all anti-bullying bill in the state House of Representatives. The purpose of our visit was to ask Representative Davnie what the best way was for us to support the Safe Schools for All Bill and anti-bullying in Minnesota. We purposed our idea of gathering Minnesota high school students in support of the bill. One main way he challenged our way of thinking was that he pointed out the language we use to talk about bullying is very important. For instance, he pointed out that we should use the term “survivor” instead of “victim”. The term survivor puts emphasis on internal strength of the individual, whereas victim implies that the individual had no power to do anything about the bullying that they experience.
As expected, Davnie was also very helpful in giving us advice for how to go about planning our student movement. He was the first to suggested that we get speakers such as Amy Klobuchar or Al Franken, as well as have bracelets or pins to hand out at our event. Although a lot of the conversation was more general then this, he got us on the right path on how to approach planning such a big project. It was disappointing to hear him tell about how the Safe Schools bill had gotten vetoed by Governor Pawlenty previously. We realized it would be very difficult to pass the Safe Schools bill before our meeting, but Representative Davnie confirmed this. If we had been prepared with more specific questions to ask Davnie, he probably would have been able to give us more information. Also, we met with Davnie very early in our process and it we didn’t know a lot of statistics about bullying, especially ones specific to Minnesota. For other teams, it is very helpful to know exactly what you want to ask the person you are meeting with ahead of time and have agenda or list of questions that you want answered during the meeting.

Your name: Chloe Castaneda
Team: Criminal neglect of a vulnerable adult

Site of interview/observation: Saint Paul Police Department
Date of interview/observation: November

1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual:
Sergeant Mike Wortman, Head of investigations of crimes against elderly for MN
2. Purpose of the visit:
To get the opinion of someone who works in the field and deals with cases directly who is not a lawmaker or a lawyer and gather as much information and support as possible.
3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal?
If anything it helped us. Sgt. Wortman was extremely pleased that young people were getting involved with vulnerable adult public policy. He believed that an increase in the penalty was long overdue and it needs support.
4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations?
I believe I was hoping to find support from someone who works in the field. We were also struggling to really find a direction and I think our meeting helped us prepare to meet with our representatives.
5. In what ways were you disappointed?
We had to continue doing more research and ultimately meet with more people, but I’m not really disappointed by that fact. I think I had hoped we would get more information on how we could get legislation going, which was not really his area of expertise.
6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit?
I suppose coming with more questions is always helpful, but we managed to get a fair amount of information out of him. The whole meeting was rather friendly and conversational.
7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits?
Don’t be worried going into a meeting. I doubt everyone will be as friendly as Sgt Wortman, but as long as one is respectful and at least somewhat prepared, you can get something out of it. Make sure you meet with a variety of people before you meet with legislators; for example, Mike Wortman is a police officer and offers a different perspective than Iris Freeman, who works more on committees and with getting legislation passed.

Site of interview/observation: State office building
Date of interview/observation: Monday, November 28th, 2011

1. I am a constituent of Representative Erin Murphy (a House member). She also has a background in nursing
2. To gain the perspective of a legislator as well as whatever information she had to offer on where this issue stands and the opposition it faces.
3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal? This was the first meeting where we really encountered opposing views. So far people had either been on the fence or completely supportive of our efforts. Representative Murphy stated she was undecided, but that was because she harbored fears we had expected to encounter. Changing the penalty to a felony has been proposed before but countered by organizations who are worried that innocent people will get hit with the penalty as well as the question “How will it help a patient?” as there is already a certain amount of safety provided when a caretaker is charged with a gross misdemeanor
4. We finally had a concrete way to word the concerns of those who oppose the change in the law and I greatly appreciated that.
5. I will admit I was uncomfortable hearing these negative points, also because we weren’t as prepared as we had been for other meetings. But in the long run it did help us find areas we lacked information; information that could be given to us during out meeting with Iris Freeman.
6. We definitely should have written questions beforehand, which we had done for previous meetings. I also feel as though meeting with legislators should happen after informational meetings (although maybe one or two might be helpful in between).
7. Keep an open mind and BE PREPARED when you talk to your legislators. Know as much as you can and if they do offer a point you can’t expand upon, research that immediately afterwards.

REPORT ON THE FIELD RESEARCH

Your name: Ben Gardner
Team: Criminal neglect of vulnerable adults
Site of interview/observation: State office Building
Date of interview/observation: Nov. 28

1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual: We met with Erin Murphy who is the a Minnesota State Representative.
2. Purpose of the visit: To ask about her thoughts on are project and receive any advice she was willing to give.
3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal? Rep. Murphy was the first person to give us the other side of the problem we were looking at and helped come up with some questions that we needed to answer.
4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations? Not only did it meet my expectations it exceeded them. Rep. Murphy has a history with the issue we are dealing with.
5. In what ways were you disappointed? I was not in any way disappointed
6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit? One thing that would have helped was to come in with a question. We did not know what we wanted from her but it did work out in the end.
7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits? Make sure you have quarters to pay for the parking, and what really helped us is we knew what we did not know about are subject so she could help fill in the gaps.

REPORT ON THE FIELD RESEARCH

Your name: Ben Gardner
Team: Criminal neglect of vulnerable adults
Site of interview/observation: William Mitchell College of Law
Date of interview/observation: Dec. 5

1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual: Iris Freeman Associate Director of the Center for Elder Justice and Policy
2. Purpose of the visit: To learn about the history of the law and the current problems with it in detail from an expert.
3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal? The meeting did not challenge are project in any way but she did tell us that similar bills were already being written.
4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations? I totally met my expectations. She is ful of information and was, and is, happy to share it with us.
5. In what ways were you disappointed? Not at all, I even got a great parking spot.
6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit? No by the time we meet with her we had done basically all the research we could have done on are own.
7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits? It really helps a project if you can find someone who knows a lot about it.

Sydney Eberwein
SDC
State Office Building

SDC met with rep. Davnie, one of the chief authors of the Safe Schools for All Bill. This visit allowed us to gain a more thorough understanding of bullying legislation in MN and to give SDC more of a direction for our energy. Our idea going into the meeting was to have an event, and coming out of the meeting that idea was still in our minds, but it was more cultivated and we know had much to discuss. This first meeting, shaped our understanding or the issue and our pursuit to change bullying.
Davnie was everything we had hoped for. He was kind, extremely knowledgable, and passionate. He was more than willing to assist us with what ever we needed. I was not disappointed by Rep. Davnie. He urged us to take action and continue moving forward with our project.
THis visit went very smoothly as I recall, but we could have researched more of MN public anti-bullying events, such as movies, etc. But Rep. Davnie was more than willing to inform us of certain note worthy events.
THis experience taught me that their are legislators that will love having students help them/their passions. Students should not be afraid to communicate with the government. We can make change happen.

Sydney Eberwein
SDC
State Office Building

Rep. Paymar is audrey representative and he has worked on numerous note worthy issues including gun control. SDC went to Paymar for help on how to orchestrate a rally at the State Capitol. This visit challenge our group and our proposal by showing us that not everyone will be as enthusiastic as we are on anti-bullying. We learned that we needed to be better prepared with research and confidence for future opposition. This visit did not meet my expectations because our previous visit had been with Rep. Davnie who was so passionate about our idea. I was disappointed that Paymar decided to quiz us on if we knew the issue. I felt belittled and unvalued by his tactics. It was twenty no fifty questions before we could even talk to him about the real issue of bullying and ask for his advise.
We could have much better prepared for our meeting. WE had research a lot for our meeting with Rep. Davnie, but before our meeting with Paymar we should have thoroughly reviewed our research so that it was on the tips of our tongues. My advise for other groups is to review, review, review and understand that not all official will be kind and welcoming and that you will, at some point, be treated like a child. Just keep plowing forward. I am so proud of SDc because during the meeting we held everyone up by speaking up when we knew the answer and being confident.

Sydney Eberwein
SDC
State Office Building

SDC met with rep. Davnie, one of the chief authors of the Safe Schools for All Bill. This visit allowed us to gain a more thorough understanding of bullying legislation in MN and to give SDC more of a direction for our energy. Our idea going into the meeting was to have an event, and coming out of the meeting that idea was still in our minds, but it was more cultivated and we know had much to discuss. This first meeting, shaped our understanding or the issue and our pursuit to change bullying.
Davnie was everything we had hoped for. He was kind, extremely knowledgable, and passionate. He was more than willing to assist us with what ever we needed. I was not disappointed by Rep. Davnie. He urged us to take action and continue moving forward with our project.
THis visit went very smoothly as I recall, but we could have researched more of MN public anti-bullying events, such as movies, etc. But Rep. Davnie was more than willing to inform us of certain note worthy events.
THis experience taught me that their are legislators that will love having students help them/their passions. Students should not be afraid to communicate with the government. We can make change happen.

Sydney Eberwein
SDC
State Office Building

Rep. Paymar is audrey representative and he has worked on numerous note worthy issues including gun control. SDC went to Paymar for help on how to orchestrate a rally at the State Capitol. This visit challenge our group and our proposal by showing us that not everyone will be as enthusiastic as we are on anti-bullying. We learned that we needed to be better prepared with research and confidence for future opposition. This visit did not meet my expectations because our previous visit had been with Rep. Davnie who was so passionate about our idea. I was disappointed that Paymar decided to quiz us on if we knew the issue. I felt belittled and unvalued by his tactics. It was twenty no fifty questions before we could even talk to him about the real issue of bullying and ask for his advise.
We could have much better prepared for our meeting. WE had research a lot for our meeting with Rep. Davnie, but before our meeting with Paymar we should have thoroughly reviewed our research so that it was on the tips of our tongues. My advise for other groups is to review, review, review and understand that not all official will be kind and welcoming and that you will, at some point, be treated like a child. Just keep plowing forward. I am so proud of SDc because during the meeting we held everyone up by speaking up when we knew the answer and being confident.