Teenager Has Politics in His Blood

Julie Rodriguez should have known early on that her son, Nick, 18, had political aspirations.

When Cesar Chavez was staging a hunger strike in 1988, Nick, then in grammar school, boycotted grapes and spread the farm workers’ message in the grocery store.

When a young Nick found out that former President Ronald Reagan had suffered a bout of skin cancer, he studied the disease and warned sunbathers about the dangers of sun exposure.

And as soon as Nick got his driver’s license, he gave his mom a list of 10 reasons she should let him use the car.

“He grabs onto something and won’t let go,” Julie Rodriguez said. “He has the tenacity of a pit bull. And he practices his tenacity on me, too. Sometimes I have to tell him I have something called parental rights.”

This week, Nick Rodriguez is volunteering at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, where he is working in the communications department and serving on a youth discussion panel.

“This is a once-every-four-years opportunity to learn more about politics,” said Rodriguez, who graduated in June as valedictorian of Oak Park High School. “And another chance to find out if I’m cut out for this.”

Looking at his resume, it seems teenager is indeed a candidate for a career in politics.

During his sophomore year, he spent five days talking to legislators in Sacramento as part of the California Assn. of Student Councils. He soon became a state officer for the CASC, and he traveled around California doing public relations for the group.

The next year, he served as the student member of the Oak Park Unified School District board. And in September of his senior year, Gov. Gray Davis appointed him to the state Board of Education, after an intense application process including a phone interview with former Secretary of Education Gary Hart.

Rodriguez graduated in June with a 4.41 GPA and a perfect 1600 on the SAT. Earlier this summer, he interned for U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein in Fresno, where he researched a master-teacher bill. And in the fall, he will attend Stanford University, where he plans to major in political science and economics. He eventually hopes to attend Harvard University for a joint law degree and master’s in public policy.

In the long run, he wants to become a politician, an education policymaker or the state schools chief. But politics and academics are not his only strengths. He also ran cross-country, has played the piano for 10 years and ballroom dances.

CASC Executive Director June Thompson said Rodriguez is eager to learn and incredibly persistent.

“When he has a direction, he puts the extra time and energy into making something happen,” Thompson said. “Wherever he ends up, I’m sure he will make a significant difference.”

Rodriguez completed his 10-month term as student member of the state Board of Education on July 31. Representing nearly 6 million California students, he attended monthly meetings in Sacramento, participated in discussions and brought the issues back to his Ventura County school and community.

Along with the 10 other board members, Rodriguez voted on wide-reaching education policy such as the statewide assessment program and the high school exit exam.

He also successfully lobbied legislators to get $33,000 allocated in the state budget for the CASC. Some of that money will go to a program he created called the Student Advisory Board on Legislation and Education, which will send student leaders to Sacramento to discuss laws with state politicians.

Rodriguez said his time on the board and in Sacramento made him even more enthusiastic about pursuing politics.

“I’ve learned that there is such a thing as an honest politician and that there are politicians who are really there for the students,” he said.

Kathryn Dronenburg, who has been on the state board for 10 years, said Rodriguez was unique because he voiced his opinion from the very beginning.

“And he always did his homework, which is not a small matter, since the agendas are usually 10 or 12 inches thick,” Dronenburg said.

After Rodriguez had been on the board for a few months, he wanted to take his involvement a step up by doing something that would directly affect other students. That’s when he decided to lobby for funding for the CASC, specifically for the programs that send students to Sacramento for discussions with legislators.

“It changed me, and I wanted to use it to change as many other students’ lives as possible,” Rodriguez said. “I wanted to show the people with the purse strings that it was influential.”

He launched an aggressive letter-writing campaign and lobbied his fellow board members and state Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin. He also attended a state Education Committee hearing in Sacramento and contacted numerous legislators.

But the battle to get funding for the CASC soon showed him the “true nature of politics.”

With the help of a few legislators, Rodriguez asked the state for $250,000. Although the Senate approved it, the Assembly did not, so the funding request was reduced to $125,000. When it finally crossed the governor’s desk, the final amount was $33,000.

“I was disappointed but still happy that the state decided to fund this organization,” Rodriguez said.

Although Julie Rodriguez first thought getting the governor to allocate money for her son’s program was a far-reaching goal, she wasn’t surprised that he succeeded.

“Nothing is impossible for Nick,” she said. “If he wants something, he goes out there and fights until he gets it.”