Perry supports bill aiming to reduce gang violence
Gov. Rick Perry announced his support at a Capitol press conference Thursday for a bill that will fight transnational gang violence.
Perry said the bill, proposed by Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, will help curtail gang violence.
“Texas has a very substantial and growing problem with transnational gangs,” Perry said.
Perry’s announcement comes days after UT sent an e-mail warning students who might travel to Mexico about the upswing in border violence.
One of the bill’s key provisions allows families who have been affected by gangs to pursue civil lawsuits against them. It will also seek to eliminate gang recruitment on the Internet.
“They are using what I consider to be terror tactics to expand their influence,” Perry said. “I support the criminalizing of online gang recruitment.”
He also said he wants Congress to appropriate $135 million to fight the gang problem.
“We will do whatever it takes to drive them out of our state,” he said.
Carona’s bill attempts to negate the operations of such gangs as the Mexican Mafia, the Texas Syndicate and MS-13.
“Transnational gangs are the primary threat to homeland security today,” Carona said. “These gangs own and operate vast transportation networks.”
— Jonathan Babin
Students to suggest methods to reduce carbon emissions
Students from the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the School of Law will present their findings next week from a yearlong study to find how Austin can become carbon neutral by 2020.
“A lot of carbon emissions get produced by coal and natural gas,” said Christopher Smith, a public affairs graduate student. “It has direct health effects and ties to global warming.”
Smith said 22 students worked on the research project, including 14 LBJ School students and eight others from the Cockrell School of Engineering, the McCombs School of Business, the UT School of Architecture and the UT School of Information.
Since fall 2008, the students have been creating a list of recommendations for Austin Energy to cut back on carbon emissions that includes the use of renewable sources of energy and nuclear energy.
“If you use nuclear energy, you have a reliable energy source that is carbon neutral,” said Smith, a leader on the project. “With other sources, like solar and wind, you can get close to carbon neutrality.”
Smith said the problem with renewable energy sources like wind and solar energy is that they aren’t always available, whereas nuclear energy sources are.
The findings will be on display at the Step Toward a Sustainable Austin Energy Symposium on Tuesday in the Eidman Courtroom of the School of Law. The research students will also present a software program they have created to determine the carbon emissions of various energy plans.
— Matt Stephens
Graduate students want own assembly to be governing body
The Graduate Student Assembly is ready for UT students to recognize it as the voice of graduate students.
The assembly discussed plans to change its current election policy Thursday and said it should be the recognized representative body of graduate students ahead of Student Government.
“When GSA was created in 1994, it said we’re the voice of the grad students,” assembly President Bradley Carpenter said. “The University doesn’t recognize that.”
Carpenter said the problem between the two organizations is their overlapping constitutions. Assembly member John Woods was recently voted into SG, Carpenter said he thinks Woods could be a bridge between the two organizations.
SG selects only four members from the assembly to serve on a committee that represents all graduate students, he said.
“We don’t mind for SG to speak on grad issues, but speak with us,” Carpenter said.
There are also instances in special committees, like the Student Services Budget Committee, where SG determines whether or not an assembly representative can serve on the committee.
Carpenter said that SG President Keshav Rajagopalan has been generous and granted them representatives on committees on several occasions.
“GSA shouldn’t have to depend on the good will of SG to have a voice,” Carpenter said.
The assembly also discussed plans to consolidate the representative elections into one election date.
The 99 departments that have a representative in the assembly hold elections at different times throughout the semester. Because of the lack of united election date, there are only 38 to 40 current members of the assembly, Carpenter said.
— Jonathan Babin
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