The Arizona chapter of Organizing for America, a community-organizing project of the Democratic National Committee, began a contest this month to see which Pac-10 school can call the most state and U.S. representatives by the end of November.
From the contest, Arizona OFA Director Jessica Jones said students at the winning school will win bragging rights and the program is trying to come up with other prizes.
All Pac-10 schools and NAU are invited to participate. OFA will be on all campuses asking students to sign a pledge that states they will contact their U.S. representatives and senators and tell them they support health care reform.
Jones said the purpose of the contest is two-fold.
“We really want to get students excited about OFA and get them involved in the organization,” Jones said. “The other purpose is to engage in competition as a community, to show how many people want health care reform and that [individuals are] not the only one[s] working on it.”
Political science senior Erik Carlson, a Tempe campus intern for OFA, said the organization plans to make phone calls, table in front of the Memorial Union and go door-to-door in residence halls. “We usually ask people if they support the president and if they do, we ask them if they would mind calling their representative to voice their support on health care reform,” he said.
Carlson said he is just starting to build support for the group and focusing more on the ASU area. He is forming an ASU OFA chapter that will have its first meeting on Thursday.
“I’m going to ask everyone at the meeting to make calls to their representatives too, and hopefully we’ll get a lot of people interested in helping the cause further,” he said.
Political science junior and Undergraduate Student Government President Brendan O’Kelly said while USG is working on health center resources, it is not working with OFA.
“We’re currently focusing on more student-related concerns. While health care does affect students, we’re focusing on other things,” O’Kelly said.
Some students think this is an issue that doesn’t affect them, Carlson said.
“They mostly think it’s people in other age brackets and they don’t have to worry about it because they are still on their parents’ plans,” Carlson said. “But a lot of people are going to be graduating in the next few years and will be off their parents’ plan. We need health care reform to help ourselves.”
Margo Traywick, a UA alumna and an intern for OFA, said she graduated in 2007 when it was becoming harder to get a job.
“I had been on my parents’ plan until that point and after I had to look at a bunch of different options because I couldn’t immediately get health insurance again,” Traywick said. “I think this is an issue that affects all of us, which is why students should want to participate in this [contest].”
Carlson said because ASU is the biggest school in the Pac-10, he is confident it will win.
“Obviously we want to win, and I expect us to,” he said.
Reach the reporter at sheydt@asu.edu.
