Page 196 - ThePhoenix1981-82

Pa e 8 May 6, 1982 Students fight aid cuts with PACs WASHINGTON. D.C. (CPS) number of students in the dis- dubbed Guaranteed Student Los- in his district. We really want to other PACs biggest weapon: trict," USSR legislative Director ers (as in Guaranteed Student help him come back (to Wash- money. Students, who until this spring Ed Hanley points out. "In other loans) or Candidates We'll-Sup- ington)." "Students tend not to have a lot _..---- have missed participating in the words, if we can get students in port (as in College Work-Study). Simon was at the COPUS press of money to donate to a PAC,' controversial rise of private Politi- those districts to vote, we can For example, Hanley notes conference announcing SPAC, 'Hobo explains. cal Action Committees (PACs) have a big impaCJ." Rep. Paul Simon (D-III.), "a great which Robb says will not "en- "Students don't have money," that have trensiormec American Hanley says NSPAC will target friend of student financial aid," courage people to become sin- Hanley aqrees, "but we do have politics, suddenly find themselves "about ten" races 1,...- as yet won only by some 2300 votes in gle-issue voters like some of the numbers." with not one, but two PACs of unnamed - next fall, aiming at 1980. "But Southem Illinois Uni- other PACs do." their Own. some candidates who'll be versity has $35,000 ",:?ters right These PACs won't have the Both the U.S. Student Associa- tion (USSA) and the Coalition of Independent College and Univer-- sity Students (referred to as -COPUS) have started PACs de- signed to help defeat federal representatives who vote "against students" on education issues, and to help elect those who vote "for students" on the issues. At a press conference last week, COPUS announced the formation of the Student Political Action Committee (SPAC), which will conduct "student registration drives, publish ratings of how congressmen and women voted on education issues, and try to organize students to work, for certain candidates. - "The emphasis," explains Gra- ham Robb, COPUS' research di- rector, "will be on suppOrting people" who supported educa- tion programs in Congress. USSA, which is generally com- posed of student government leaders from public ss,hools, also helped form a RAC, this one called the National Student Politi· cal Action' Committee (NSPAC). "If we gel people to give their time to a candidate," Robb adds, "that's going to be worth more to a candidate than if we give him $200." Both PACs stress they're bi- partisan, thQ\,Jgh Robb concedes "last year the student aid cuts became kind of a party issue, so those who voted with President Reagan's budget generally didn't fare as well as others (in COPUS' initial ratings of congressional voting records)." Robb also hopes to work closely with USSA - he wasn't aware of NSPAC when he spoke to College Press Service - on voter registration drives. I - "But USSA handles a little broader range of issues than we do, so our ratings may be differ- net from their's." Hanley, mindful of how USSA has been stung in the past by accusations of treating "non-edu- cation issues" at the expense of "education issues," contends that "95 percent of our issues are education. We follow the draft very closely. We also are trying to determine which part of the civil rights laws currently before Congress directly affect stu- dents." COPUS is also treating the administration's attempts to cool enforcement of certain civil rights laws like TItle IX as an education issue "There are 101 congressional districts where the margin of victory in~ 980 was less than the