By Mary Virginia Huffaker
Tomorrow-Today Staff Writer
With the start of the Youth Legislature conference, comes the start of the hard work from the lobbyist program. The lobbyists in the YMCA lobbyist program work behind the scenes to support bills by providing more information to delegates in either the Senate or the House.
This year the lobbyist program implemented some changes to strengthen their program. The program added position papers to their agenda. The position papers allow the lobbyists to clearly express their opinions (for or against) on chosen bills as opposed to just having fact sheets. The lobbyists also would like to issue reports on the ALYIG blog. Look out to see if that happens.
There are three lobbyists – Jordyn Hudson (head lobbyist), Bashir Tajuddin and Aylon Gipson. The agenda for the lobbyists includes criminal justice reform, the prison pipeline, green issues (such as climate change), educational systems and dismantling redlining. So far the program has supported SB25 which, allows same-sex couples to have equal adoption rights. The lobbyists also support HB17, which keeps kids from being placed in adult facilities for committed crimes.