Students venture to the State Capitol building with questions for their elected officials
A national voting rights non-profit organization partnered with Mesa Community College to bring students to the Arizona State Capitol to encourage their civic engagement on April 15.
Fair Elections Center’s non-partisan Campus Vote Project invited students across Arizona to the State Capitol building for a seven-hour day of learning where they met elected officials and saw how legislation is ratified, some for the first time. Eleven MCC students attended the event.
The peers from diverse backgrounds attended for an array of reasons, but the CVP coordinators had the collective purpose of exposing students to how democracy operates.
“Your voice matters so much beyond checking a box. You can influence the way policy happens,” said Emma Burns, Arizona coordinator for the Fair Elections Center, “you can talk to these folks, you can introduce legislation to elected officials and ask them to sponsor it if you want to. If you care about an issue, you can take it home.”
MCC students joined peers from schools across the state to meet and ask questions with a handful of district senators, representatives and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.
All of the state legislators MCC students met with were Democratic. Sen. David Gowan was the only participating Republican member who spoke with students from Eastern Arizona College.
Fair Elections Center is a non-partisan group. Burns clarified that she had invited representatives and senators from all congressional districts the participating students resided in, regardless of party affiliation, but the majority of elected officials who agreed to attend the event were members of the Democratic party.
One MCC student, Bailey Johnson, who said she politically leans Republican, was pleased with the conversation she had with Democratic Sen. Kiana Sears about laws surrounding firearms.
“She had the same opinion as me about just making sure that there’s more steps and rules in order to be able to possess a weapon,” Johnson said, who carries a handgun with her wherever she goes.
Johnson added she feels like it’s difficult to have conversations with fellow students part of the Democratic party about gun laws, but said Sears was intelligent and non-judgemental.
Johnson mentioned she felt like she missed out on learning about legislation in high school during the COVID-19 pandemic when her high school transitioned to online learning. She said the experience taught her a lot about the legislative process.
Nico Romero is an MCC student majoring in economics. He attended because he said he wanted to see the actual jobs of the people he votes for, and he’s considering a career as an elected official in the future. Romero also noted that issues like economic inequality are a drive to pursue a career in the state or federal legislature.
“With such a strong economy here in the United States, there should be a way to figure out where everybody, including the middle, the working class, can live a life where they’re not living paycheck to paycheck,” said Romero.
One of the main reasons Romero said he is unsure about pursuing a career as an elected government official is concern for his safety after Fontes told students that he has to pay for security for his family.
After students had talked to senators and congressmen, watched a legislative session and went through a tour of the historical Capitol Museum, an MCC alumna and Arizona state coordinator from VoteRiders, Danielle Duarte, spoke to students about barriers proposed by voter ID laws.
VoteRiders is a non-profit organization with a mission to ensure all citizens can vote, according to their official website. Duarte passed around small, bifold cards to every student that read “In Arizona, you must show an ID to vote in person” with information on accepted forms of voter identification.
“I get to help people every single day in difficult situations, and transform their life just with this plastic little card,” said Duarte.
The VoteRiders coordinator said she wants everyone to vote because there would be a more representative electorate.
The Capitol visit was the latter of a two-part event through the Center for Community and Civic Engagement at MCC. Students learned about how a bill is passed through Congress before visiting the place where the actual process occurs.
The CCCE continued to hold events focused on immersing MCC students in their communities through the end of the spring 2025 semester. Not all events were centered around politics like the one on April 15.
Correction, 5/13/1015. This story was updated to reflect that Sen. David Gowan, who is a Republican, did speak with students at the event.
