Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Student Senate is scheduled to vote tonight on whether to cap the amount of money student coalitions can spend on their campaigns during Senate elections at $6,000. If passed by full Senate, the bill would also shorten the time coalitions would be allowed to campaign to keep the elections from interfering with students’ education at the University.
Maosn Heilman, Lawrence junior and Student Executive Committee chairman, said condensing the elections cycle would allow those involved in elections to focus on academics while also dedicating time to Senate elections. He said it would decrease the amount of harassment students not involved in campaigns had to experience on campus. Senate elections have deviated from serving their intended purpose to enhance students’ education, he said.
“We really tried to strike a balance between making sure candidates can get out their message and students can hear that message while not being overly bombarded,” Heilman said.
Some student senators who opposed the bill said it would not increase the impartiality of the elections process.
Adam Wood, Lawrence senior, said the time limit was unfair to smaller coalitions because they couldn’t do as much as the larger ones in six weeks. Wood said it would be “basically impossible” for Senate to accurately enforce a spending limit.
“Larger campaigns can afford to exceed the spending limit by budgeting enough money to afford the fines they would have to pay for going over,” Wood said. “Why kid ourselves? Let’s not delude ourselves that this somehow is going to be fair.”
Elise Higgins, Topeka junior, said campaigning before the spring elections last year lasted six months and several coalitions, including former coalitions United Students and ConnectKU, spent about $10,000 on their campaigns while others spent thousands less. One former coalition, Students for Liberty, spent just $75.She said the elections process should be more regulated and the time limit for campaigning should be set at six weeks, including elections week.
Bill Walberg, El Dorado Hills, Calif., senior, said he agreed with cutting campaign time but not the campaigns’ budgets. He said that it was difficult to get students involved in the elections and that putting a cap on the budget would take away from the coalitions’ “social budgets,” which included making buttons, posters and having kickoff parties.
“We don’t have a cap on the presidential election, why do we need a cap on this one?” Walberg said. “I think it should be a microcosm of the real thing if people are going to take us seriously.”
Wood said the bill did not accomplish either of its objectives to regulate elections and help out the smaller coalitions. He said it weakened new or third party coalitions because they did not have an established base of support or financial stability at the beginning of a campaign.
“This will actually create an artificial barrier on how much honest people can spend,” Wood said.
The senators debated about whether some rules were better than no rules, regardless of their enforceability.
Sarah Shier, Salina freshman, said even though the rules might not be enforced perfectly, it would be better to punish disobedience rather than to ignore it.
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Senate set to vote on new campaign regulations
I wish that elections reforms consisted of eliminating "active campaigning"- I think everyone could get behind that. There's nothing more annoying to students than the walk and talk, and many students don't vote because of active campaigning. Get rid of pestering students to vote, and perhaps they might just vote willingly.
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