Students may soon have more of a presence in the Iowa State legislature through a revived and reorganized state student lobbying association.

At its Sept. 17 meeting, the Government of the Student Body unanimously voted to support entering into a trilateral partnership with students from the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa, as a way of creating a unified front in the struggle to maintain higher education funding.

“Obviously what we were doing wasn’t enough, so we need something different,” said Vice Speaker of the Senate William Rock. “We need that one unifying voice because it will have more impact than having many people saying different messages.”

Rock, who is also the chair of the GSB Senate Government Relations Committee, said in the past, GSB was only present before the state legislature one day out of the year in the spring. He said he is glad GSB had a lobby day, but it wasn’t enough to prevent a rise in tuition among regent universities.

“A lot of legislators have said they haven’t seen students at the Capitol talking about education funding,” Rock said. “Because of that, they’ve said ‘If higher education funding is so important to [students], why aren’t they here?’

“[The association] is a way of showing them it is important to us and things are that bad now for students financially.”

A United Students of Iowa association was formed in the 1980s to lobby the Statehouse and voice student concerns and opinions over education funding, he said.

The association was disbanded in the 1990s due to problems that arose over money issues, Rock said.

Rock said United Students of Iowa paid its staff members and the regent universities gave money to the association. At some point, people were unwilling or unable to funnel money into the association, resulting in its dismantling, he said.

Ben Stone, former United Students of Iowa president, went on to become the Iowa Civil Liberties Union executive director. Stone was unavailable for comment.

“[United Students of Iowa] was an inspiration in getting this going and it did work well, but it disbanded for a reason,” Rock said. “We are going to use it as a model, but we want to make that model stronger so it will stick around.”

UNI student government president Emiliano Lerda said he supports the partnership and the idea to create an association because he believes a unified voice will be very productive.

“With a unified front, the message to the Legislature will be stronger because it will help give the official voice of Iowa Regent University students, which will carry more weight than having many students delivering many different messages,” Lerda said.

He said the association will have benefits outside of the lobbying effort.

“It will be a good opportunity for the universities to discuss common problems and come up with solutions that will not benefit just one university, but all of the universities,” Lerda said.

He said he believes the association will be successful because there is nothing to lose in working together with Iowa State and the University of Iowa.

“Combining efforts and resources will help all Iowa Regent University students to be more productive and organized,” Lerda said.

GSB President Mike Banasiak, whose campaign goal was to better represent students in the statehouse, said he applauds the effort.

“[GSB] is always looking for better ways to communicate student interest to the state legislature,” Banasiak said. “An organized state student association provides a constant effective way to do that.”

Rock said meetings have been scheduled with lobbyists and legislatures to see how the association should be organized and run.

He said the group should be ready to present to the Legislature at its next session in January. The University of Iowa has expressed its support for the association as well, Rock said.