On Monday, Feb. 18th, YDs from all over the state traveled to Olympia to lobby their representatives on a variety of issues. Young Dems came from as far away as Bellingham and Spokane to make their voices heard by their legislators, and we accomplished a lot. People lobbied on a variety of bills and legislation, and within the next few days, most of those bills either progressed or were passed.

A few of the issues that our illustrious president and the executive board decided on, and which we subsequently lobbied for, were: having ballot drop- boxes available on college campuses to encourage student participation in the voting process; lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 years old; increasing the required length of notice to be given to people in low- income housing in the event that the owner of the property decides to convert it into condos; granting the Planned Parenthood program $8 million in state funds to replace the federal funding cuts in the last few years so that they could continue to provide services to thousands of low-income young people; and a domestic partnership bill that would give homosexual couples many of the same rights as married couples such as nursing home visits, military benefits and joint property rights, to name just a few.

As most of you know, our legislative chambers are currently filled with a super-majority of Democrats, so most of our issues had a good deal of support from our representatives. When I managed to pull one of my Representatives from the 23rd district, Sherry Appleton, out of session to talk to her about securing the funding for the Planned Parenthood program, it was to her credit that she said matter-of-factly, "Of course I support this. Why are you still talking to me about it?"

One of the highlights of the day for our YDWA group was when we got to sit in on the King County Caucus meeting and listen to several of the representatives from King County/Seattle area address questions and explain what was going on in the chambers to their constituents. To crown the event, Governor Christine Gregoire made time to come and speak to those of us gathered there. She praised Washington's growth and progressive record both economically and environmentally, and she requested support for the upcoming election so that she could continue to work toward a brilliant future for Washington state.

Jakob Lunden, one of our fine Young Democrats from Western Washington University who made the trek down to participate, summed it up pretty well: "Despite a busy day in both chambers, our elected representatives and senators took the time to meet with over 30 young democrats and talk to us about important issues we were lobbying for. It was great that they took time to listen to us, as busy as they were."

Thanks to all of you who made it out, and for those of you out there in the YDWA who didn't get the chance this year, plan on it for next year!