This post was written by Aaron Traywick, a CASE organizer who spent the spring lobbying for student-written legislation to protect 200,000 residents of the Greater Birmingham Region from the proposed Shepherd Bend Mine.

Greetings from Alabama!

After literally throwing myself into the halls of the 2013 Alabama Legislative Session with no experience for four months straight, I felt like it might be a good idea to share a bit of what I, and the sensational team of CASE student organizers statewide, learned from our work.

This grinding session has been dubbed “We Dare Defend Our Rights,” in reference to the comprehensive legislative agenda that was successfully passed by the House/Senate Super-Majority, creating a multitude of conservative laws pertaining to abortion, healthcare, and public education, all (for better or for worse) unique to the nation. Despite the challenging environment, we made some real progress, which you can read about in a previous post.