The Associated Students of Madison Legislative Affairs Committee has made plans to have the major gubernatorial candidates speak on campus by the end of the school year.

Vice-Chair Kyle Woolwich said the three candidates will be invited to speak on campus at the end of the month. Those invited include Democratic candidate and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, as well as Republican candidates Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and former U.S. Congressman Mark Neumann.

Woolwich said he will be contacting the candidates’ campaigns this week to set up days they will be available to speak.

He said ideally he would like that they would all speak on the same day, but it would probably not be possible with their busy schedules.

Woolwich added having the candidates come speak is a great way to get in contact with the campaigns and help set up the debate they are planning for after the September 14th primaries.

“To me that’s pretty much the main goal of getting them to come speak on campus, just so we can start that dialogue with them,” Woolwich said. “It’s obviously good to get them on campus and speaking to students, but if we can get that to happen, it will be that much more valuable in the fall.”

Graduate Student Advisor Colin Ingram said they have been talking with Channel 3 WISC-TV’s online news site, Channel 3000, about co-sponsoring the debate next fall. Channel 3000 is interested in streaming the debate online.

After the speakers come to campus, Ingram suggests the committee draft letters to the respective candidates’ campaigns with topics that would be relevant to University of Wisconsin students for the debate.

Another idea Ingram said was that Legislative Affairs should approach the candidates with ideas to make their debate stand out and be different.

“If we can come up with ideas for a way we can use new media, a way we can make the student debate unique, it could help get the candidates to agree,” Ingram said.

LAC also planned to set up a group of students over the summer to look at the renewal of the city’s Alcohol Density Plan — the city’s overarching plan to regulate all places that sell alcohol in the downtown area, according to LAC Chair Adam Johnson.

Johnson said it is set to expire at the end of this year and the Alcohol License Review Committee will be looking to renew or modify it this summer.

The plan would then go before the City Council to be voted on before the end of the year.

“We want to have a hand in what’s going to happen with this new density plan. We want to make sure students are having their voices heard from students and not from people who think they know what students want,” Johnson said.

Johnson added they would have to depend on next year’s leadership to stay involved with city issues and to do what is best for students and the city.