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| Student voting policy may change for senators |
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| Written by By Brian Rich -Argonaut | ||||||
| Tuesday, 11 October 2005 | ||||||
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ASUI President Autumn Hansen is planning to change the rules regarding
student voting for senators, with new legislation that will limit each
student to one vote. Currently, students can vote for up to seven senators, which Hansen said causes problems. “I don’t think there are that many qualified candidates going out for these positions,” she said. Hansen was first considering a piece of legislation that would limit each living group to two senators, but she said such legislation would turn the senate into a house of representatives, which is not her intention. Instead, she thought up the idea of limiting each student to one vote, which could potentially solve any representation problems and also improve the quality of senators. Hansen’s idea may not be clear at first, but what it would do is create competition within living groups. If several candidates ran from any one house, they would have to compete with each other for the votes within their house. Also, if multiple candidates ran from the same house, they would have to campaign to other living groups to get elected, thus increasing voting numbers and representation, Hansen said. “The major concern from individuals in ASUI is that you’ll have senators that will be getting voted in with 40 votes,” Hansen said. “And I’m excited for that … hopefully ASUI will realize that they are not representative. With the president, vice president … with those tickets it doesn’t matter, because you only get one vote in that election.” Other ASUI senators are skeptical about Hansen’s stance, claiming ASUI isn’t having any problem of representation. “I don’t think we focus on one particular group or another,” said ASUI sen. Travis Shofner, who lives off-campus. “I think we’re not even biased toward on-campus and off-campus. A lot of things that we do affect on-campus and off-campus equally.” ASUI sen. Travis Galloway agrees. He said there is no bias based on where people live. “People, no matter where they’re from, are going to have varying opinions,” said Galloway, who is one of five senators from the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. “Just because they’re from the same place doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to always vote aligned with each other.” Hansen said she’s bringing about this legislation, now in draft form, because she is concerned Greek students within the senate are bonding together, which could lead to biased legislation. “It is like the boys’ club, like in any government, where all of the politics take place at a golf course or at a bar in front of a glass of scotch,” she said. “That’s the way government is done. We want to change that, but naturally it’s going to happen. People are likely to align with people they agree with and have a shared experience, and that’s what we see here … some of the fraternities and sororities are better at leaving their affiliation or partnerships at the door, others are not.” While Hansen is working on this legislation, a bill to remove ASUI’s requirement to follow Idaho Open Meeting law is in the ASUI Rules and Regulations Committee. If the legislation passes, senators would be able to meet any time, with a quorum or not, behind closed doors to consider legislation.  Add as favorites (19) | Views: 591
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