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Tuesday, April 08, 2008

UC Davis College Democrats Win Award and Sponsoring Debra Bowen Event Tonight

Debra Bowen Event TONIGHT

Dear Vanguard Readers,

The Davis College Democrats would like to present to you California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, Speaking Tonight @ 7pm in Wellman 2.

Secretary Bowen has been a strong advocate for open government and clean elections where every vote is counted. Prior to the February 5th Presidential Primary, she de-certified several counties' voting machines during a top-to-bottom review of the states voting system, in an effort to ensure the existence of a paper trail and require every vote to be counted.

Additionally, Debra Bowen has fought to make the government codes accessible to the public and posted them online, in an effort to increase transparency in the system.

Off campus visitors can park for $6 in the North Entry Parking Structure or Visitor Parking Lot 15, which can be located at the following link.

Thank you for your time, and See you Tonight!

Democratically Yours,

Max Mikalonis
President
Davis College Democrats

UC Davis College Democrats Win Award from State Party

Last Wednesday, I came to the College Democrats club meeting for the first time. I walked into the room and there were at least forty college Democrats there at 8 pm on a Wednesday evening gearing up for the coming June Elections. It was a great site to see so many young activists ready to participate in the Democratic Process.

Students are largely written off as non-participants, but it seems likely that this year will be different. This chapter of the College Democrats is exemplary. The weekend before they were named the California College Democrats Outstanding Chapter of the Year Award
at the California Democratic Party Convention. In a press release sent to the Vanguard, they enumerated on their work over the past year.

Their hard works over the course of the academic year have included campaigning for recent propositions, increasing chapter membership by four-hundred percent, holding their first annual fundraiser at which they raised approximately $4,000, and hosting the highly-attended Hillary Clinton for President Rally featuring former President Bill Clinton. In a 24 hour period, the club was able to mobilize volunteers to promote and staff the event whose attendance topped 10,000 students and community members.

The President Clinton event was especially remarkable because the Hillary Clinton campaign had hoped they could get a couple of hundred people to come out for the former President at the last meeting. Instead, they got over 10,000. So many in fact, that people had to be turned away from the event.

Vice President of Membership Don Gibson remarked,
“It’s a symbol of the work that the club as a whole put in. Club meetings are five times as large as last year and our delegations to events in Lake Tahoe, Anaheim, Berkeley, and San Jose have been among the largest in the state.”
President Max Mikalonis praised his members,
“There’s no way we could have accomplished this alone. It was the hard work and dedication of our club officers and members that earned us this award. These leaders are primed to do great things for the future of the club, and will carry this experience onto their professional lives.”
According to the press release:
"The Davis College Democrats will also play a role in the upcoming city council elections through endorsements and grassroots campaigning-- having a significant impact on the City of Davis."
Indeed at the meeting I attended, they were hard at work on a city council candidates questionnaire that focused largely on issues of concern to students but also on broader issues.

It was a refreshing thing to see from this old veteran, who remembers five or six people turning at his undergraduate school for College Democrats.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting