With tuition fees expected to double in the next five years for California schools, students wonder if the rise will ever simply stop.

Hope comes from state Assembly Bill 2372, or the College Affordability Act, which would “freeze” the tuition amount at University of California and California State University schools for the next five years.

Revenue for such a bill would draw from a 1 percent income tax from millionaires, raising $2 billion a year. Funds would be monitored by an accountability panel, and after five years, tuition would not be allowed to increase more than inflation.

“It should be a right for students to have access to public higher action,” said Valeria Fike-Rosales, lead organizer of Tuition Relief Now’s statewide ballot initiative. “The fees keep increasing and the fact that students don’t have the political power to do anything isn’t fair for them.”

Tuition Relief Now is an organization composed of parents, students and California residents coordinating a statewide ballot measure to increase the chances of the tuition freeze legislation. The ballot measure needs approximately 434,000 more valid signatures before Apr. 16 to qualify for the November 2008 ballot.

“I think we have a good shot at qualifying for the ballot,” said Chris Vaeth, campaign director of Tuition Relief Now. “The question we have now is the validity rate – the people who sign it must be registered voters in the county.”

Sixty percent of the revenue from the bill would be allocated to CSU and UC schools specifically for tuition and education funds. The other 40 percent would go to K-12 funding.

UC Davis has attained the second most signatures on the ballot initiative, with over 50 volunteers helping to get more signatures. Activism on campus is spreading, from a few petitioners on campus to an announcement for the organization at Saturday’s Mistah FAB and Zion-I concert.

“We have a good group and people who have been going out consistently to get signatures,” said Ted Reiterman, campaign organizer at UC Davis and first-year undeclared major. “Davis is an important campus because it’s so close to the capitol, so our volunteers are very important.”

Reiterman and 24 other UC Davis students attended the hearing for the College Affordability Act at the Assembly Higher Education Committee on Mar. 25. The Assembly approved the bill, sending it next to the Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation.

Although momentum for the bill has been successful so far, opponents such as the American Taxpayer’s Association are lobbying against it. Many, such as distinguished professor of economics Peter Lindert, believe that freezing the tuition would slow the competitive market of the universities, causing crowded classrooms, poor faculty quality and compromised financial aid.

“Fee increases are unpopular, of course,” Lindert said in an e-mail interview. “Yet in this state, and in much of the world, university students can afford to pay a bit more, as long as we offer financial aid to those from truly low-income families.”

Both opinions are set to be heard at the Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation in the coming weeks.

LAUREN STEUSSY can be reached at campus@californiaaggie.com.

Elected officials’ attendance

ASUCD Senate meetings are scheduled to begin Thursdays at 6:10 p.m. Times listed are according to the clock at the Apr. 3 meeting location, the Memorial Union’s Mee Room.

Meeting started at 6:15 p.m.

Ivan Carrillo, president, not present

Molly Fluet, vice president, present

Andrew Bianchi, senator, present

Sergio Blanco, senator, present

Chirs Dietrich, senator, present

Erica Oropeza, senator, present

Ramneek Saini, senator, present

Rebecca Schwartz, senator, present

Lula Ahmed-Falol, senator, present

Chad Roberts, senator, present

Rebecca Lovell, senator, present

Jesse Rosales, senator, present

Joe Chatham, senator, present

Tracey Zeng, senator, arrived 7:06 p.m.

Appointments and confirmations

Bianchi was appointed senate representative to the Campus Media Board.

ASUCD Controller Paul Harms was reappointed as controller and will fill the position for another full term until April 2009.

Schwartz was appointed senator pro tempore.

Introduction of new legislation

An ASUCD senate bill, authored by Paul Harms, coauthored by Brent Laabs and Matt Shannon, introduced by Ahmed Falol, to change administrative plan process.

An ASUCD senate resolution, authored and introduced by Dietrich, in support of UC Davis Gmail program.

An ASUCD resolution, introduced and authored by Dietrich, coauthored by Chatham and Natalia Farhad Motamed, to adopt a senator to increase bipartisan cooperation and to help newly elected senators transition.

An ASUCD Bill, authored by Fluet, coauthored by Izzo and Schwartz, introduced by Schwartz, to allocate $500 from senate reserves to fund the Academicians and Politicians Ignore World Poor and Oppressed talk.

Public discussion

Dayanita Ramesh, first-year international relations major, campaigned for Lois Wolk.

Max Mikalonis, junior political science major, announced the Davis College Democrats kickoff meeting. DCD won chapter of the year award. He also held a moment of silence for lives lost in Iraq.

Public announcements

Christine Pham, chair of Academic Affairs Commission, announced the presentation of You’re a good man, Charlie Brown.

Oropeza announced the anti-bias training “Lost in Colors” will occur Apr. 12.

Saini announced that CALPIRG’s Battle of the Bands will take place Apr. 9 at 7:30 p.m. in the ASUCD Coffee House.

Urgent legislation

An ASUCD Senate Bill, authored and introduced by Rosales, to allocate $800 from Senate Reserves to the event titled “UC Davis Rail Jam”. Introduced as urgent in order to meet funding deadlines. The bill passed unanimously.

Old legislation

Senate Bill #31, authored by Greg Webb, coauthored by Laabs, introduced by the Internal Affairs Commission, which would allow for public questioning of new officials, was vetoed by former President Salem. The veto stands at a 5-7 vote.

Senate Bill #33, authored by Laabs, coauthored by Matt Blair and Jeremy Ross, introduced by Chatham, to restructure elections codes, passed unanimously.

Meeting was adjourned at 9:43 p.m.

LAUREN STEUSSY compiles the senate briefs and can be reached at campus@californiaaggie.com.

The Native American Student Union (NASU) held the 36th annual Davis Powwow on Saturday in the ARC Pavilion to kick off Native American Culture Week.

“A powwow is a social gathering of the tribes,” explained April Negrette, co-chair of the event and a first-year undeclared major. Powwows are seasonal events beginning in March and ending in October, taking place across the nation.

The festivities began at 10 a.m. with the Pomo dancers and ended shortly after 11 p.m. following the switch dancers.

The Powwow, which has been absent from Davis for two yearsdue to an unusually low Native American population in the student body, was made possible thanks to the efforts of the Powwow Committee, chaired by members of NASU, and a rise in Native American population.

“There was a big boom in the Native American student population this year,” said DJ Worley, a Davis graduate and current graduate student in Native American studies, and long standing member of NASU.

The event is focused around competitive dancing categorized by age and gender, with prize money being awarded to winners in each category.

“We’re here to encourage cultural diversity on campus, to bring our community to the Davis community,” Negrette said. “This is our first big event on campus this year, and we’re really excited to be able to bring back the powwow.”

Negrette, a Shoshonia-Paiute Native American, was in charge of vendors and facilities. Multi-colored hand woven rugs, ponchos, handbags, a variety of shirts, jewelry, dream catchers and musical instruments were all available for sale.

For most in attendance, this was their first powwow of the year.

“I’m so glad this is happening. It’s so much more than I expected,” Negrette said. “Every time I hear the jingling of the regalia, I get excited, I’m ecstatic.”

Regalia refer to the elaborate multicolored feather- and bell- covered outfits worn by many of the dancers. A dancer’s regalia determines which dance they compete in such as the Men’s Fancy or Men’s Traditional.

Donnie LeDesma danced in his first powwow in five years this weekend, competing in the Northern Men’s Traditional. Of the Southern California Mission Band, LeDesma has been coming to the Davis Powwow for 35 years.

“I come to see family and friends,” LeDesma said. “A powwow is a social event where you can have fun in a family atmosphere. Everyone comes together – all different nations. It’s an intertribal gathering.”

LeDesma’s wife Dolores is of the Navajo tribe. “Every tribe has their own style [of dancing],” LeDesma said.

This powwow featured a northern and southern drum. LeDesma explained that the southern drum was more traditional, while the northern drum tended to focus more on an intertribal style.

“I just like watching young people come out, I like to see the next generation respect and honor the tradition of the powwow,” LeDesma said. “It’s real respectful, honoring different generations, and it shows we’re still proud of what we do and how we dance. This tradition is strong in our culture.”

The largest powwow, called the Gathering of the Nations, is held in Albuquerque, N.M. at the end of October, LeDesma said.

Cason Macbride, a UC Santa Cruz graduate now teaching art and theater at East Bay Arts in Hayward, travels across California for powwows competing in the Men’s Fancy and hopes to someday be able to attend the Gathering of Nations.

“I like the respect for everyone,” Macbride said. “There’s not a lot of cultures that men’s dancing is so accepted, and here it’s all about being yourself. You dance to express yourself.”

In one season, Macbride won over $4,000 dancing, “and that’s not much compared to some of these guys,” he said.

Dancing is not the only thing that draws a large crowd here.

Wailaki’s Indian Taco stand, which set up shop outside the southeast corner of the Pavilion, estimated selling over 600 Indian tacos alone, said manager Marcia Hoaglan.

The Indian tacos are served on a deep fried fluffy dough called fry bread and topped with chili beans and bison meat, lettuce, tomatoes and cheese.

“Next year, we’ll definitely have more food stands,” said Hailey Ferroni, a first-year psychology and Native American studies major, in reference to the enormous lines at the taco stand.

“But I’m really glad that the students came together like this,” Ferroni said. “there was a great turnout. A lot of people showed up and we definitely look forward to it next year, we want to expand it more, get more advertising.”

“It’s been a good powwow,” Hoaglan said. “For the first one being back they did a really good job. There were singers and dancers from all over.”

Karla Marquez, a senior international relations major, read about the event on a poster in the quad. She came after attending Danzantes del Alma.

“There’s a similar sense of culture and community,” Marquez said. “I like that this allows you to really feel like a part of the event. We’re all surrounding dancers and you can feel what they’re are feeling.”

Other students heard about the event through Native American studies classes, like Angela Medina, a first-year human development major, and Gabby Glucksman, a sophomore animal sciences major.

“I loved the tiny tots. They were hilarious,” Medina said. “The one looked like he was trying to be an eagle; we definitely plan on volunteering next year.”

“It was awesome, I loved all the cool regalia the dancers wore,” Glucksman said.

Negrette’s favorite part was the switch dance, when the men dressed up like women and vice versa. Ferroni liked the tiny tots, where children 5 years old and under competed.

“This was a lot more than we expected,” Negrette said. “I’m really happy that so many people cared to come up here.”

CHARLES HINRIKSSON can be reached at campus@californiaaggie.com.

La Raza Law Students Association sponsored events throughout the week in honor of César Chávez. Monday through Friday, events were held on campus under the theme “Progress and Prosperity for our Community.”

Monday’s breakfast kicked off the week’s festivities while Tuesday, Cara Jobson – a partner of Wiley & Jobson San Francisco immigration law firm – led a discussion on people persecuted on account of sexual orientation and identity.

Wednesday’s events caused people to ask questions.

“People asked ‘How can we build on his legacy?'” said Kathleen Rojas, La Raza’s co-chair for the event.

Marc Grossman, longtime personal aid to César Chávez, answered those questions by speaking about remaining faithful to serving the community and maintaining meaning for action-driven services. Also brought up at the event was the parallel that Chávez was the Martin Luther King Jr. of the Latino community.

“I think it’s very important, especially to law students, that they are introduced to the responsibility of having to represent all walks of life. We hope that with a week like this they will be able to grasp a little bit more about our community and other underrepresented groups,” Rojas said.

On thursday, the Law School Admissions Council welcomed high school students from César Chávez High School for a Shadow Day in order to introduce them to the possibility of attending law school.

“I think our most important event of the week is with the high school students,” Rojas said. She talked about how La Raza law students spoke about their upbringing in a panel discussion and mentioned that some of them were the first generation in their families to attend law school.

Phil Angelides, elected California’s State Treasurer in 1998 and an active political figure, spoke Thursday on being civically active and participating at the local, state and federal level. Emeritus professor of law Cruz Reynoso also spoke on his views of the law.

“The focus of my talk [has] to do with the importance of legal services to this country in terms of the administration of justice, and what has gone right and wrong in terms of legal services in our country,” he said.

Reynoso was a keynote speaker that evening after the presentation of a short film titled “The War Against Poverty,” honoring former American Democratic politician Sargent Shriver.

“[There was a] focus on what we can do to bring back the spirit of public service that we found early on the life Sargent Shriver,” Reynoso said.

“It was good for the law school community to hear about Chávez, how he sacrificed and how decent a person he was.… His success was not pre-ordained but only came about through commitment and patience,” said Kevin Johnson, associate dean of the UC Davis School of Law.

Johnson spoke about the importance of having such events on the Davis campus.

“UC Davis is located in the great Central Valley of California. This is where Chávez and the UFW [United Farm Workers Union] sought to organize. The law students at the School of Law do us a great service in organizing this Chávez week of events to remind us of our history,” Johnson said.

The week’s events conclude with Tuesday’s Naturalization Workshop to help organize permanent residents become U.S. citizens at Woodland High School.

ANGELA RUGGIERO can be reached at campus@californiaaggie.com.