ASUI voted in favor of three separate resolutions opposing new bills from the state legislature, including a resolution calling for the permanent removal of the university’s requirement that incoming students have an SAT or ACT score for admission.
The unanimous vote comes after the previous week’s meeting where senators delved into how these tests fail to accommodate for structural inequalities across school districts.
Voter suppression
Two bills were also introduced Wednesday seeking to address concerns of voter suppression within the state.
One resolution targeted House Bill 549. Introduced last week in the legislature, the bill would eliminate same-day voter registration as well as the ability of unaffiliated voters to declare which primary ballot they want to receive.
In terms of additions, the bill would require voters to provide proof of citizenship, photo identification and address verification, a stipulation that resolution authors McRoberts and Vice President Katie Hettinga described as “redundant” given Idaho already disallows noncitizens from obtaining a driver’s license or passport.
The bill would also bring an end to the ability for students to use their student IDs for voter registration, a change that was addressed in a separate resolution with the proposal of adding the residence address and birthdates to all student identification cards.
Citing previous experience working at the university’s SRC to register voters, Sen. Ellie Erickson explained the impacts that this bill from the state legislature would have, specifically highlighting the value in continuing to allow for same-day registration.
“The majority of people who I registered there were students, and these students were not familiar with the process of registering to vote or necessarily how they wanted to vote,” Erickson said. “Eliminating same-day registration would prevent a lot of students from voting.”
Both resolutions aimed at combatting statewide voter suppression passed unanimously.
Mask mandate
Another resolution calling upon the Idaho State Legislature to protect the autonomy of state entities was passed in an effort to ensure the university, along with other state institutions, retain the ability to enact mask mandates.
The university’s current policy involves a reevaluation of the indoor masking mandate every three weeks, bringing into consideration the recommendations from local and state health organizations as well as the current COVID-19 case rate and hospitalization numbers.
The resolution challenges House Bill 631. The bill, which was introduced Tuesday, would bar entities or employees of the state from implementing any mandate requiring a face covering “for the purpose of preventing or slowing the spread of a contagious or infectious disease” in addition to being used “as a condition for entry, education, employment or other services.”
Citing the broad verbiage of the latter condition for the mask mandate ban, Senate Pro-Tempore Cassidey Plum expressed concern for the ways the bill would impact the safety of the university’s research labs and state-operated diagnostic labs since neither would be able to require masks for entry, opening avoidable health and safety risks.
Regarding COVID-19 specifically, masks were described by Director of Safety, Health and Wellness Abbey Rode as a “last option to protect our students, staff and faculty from COVID-19” given Gov. Brad Little’s ongoing ban of vaccine mandates at the state level.
“The University of Idaho is one of the only state institutions requiring masks and (the university is) making recommendations for students and faculty wearing masks based on state and local health guidance,” Director of Legislative Affairs Lydia McRoberts said. “I personally believe… that we should be able to retain that local power and local jurisdiction over health and safety decisions.”
Royce McCandless can be reached at [email protected] or Twitter @roycemccandless