A ballot measure in support of funding the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group through the ASUO passed, though the election result is likely to be only one step in the group’s attempt to recover funding through the student government.
OSPIRG, a political advocacy organization financed through student fees, lost the more than $100,000 a year it received from the ASUO in 2009 after then-ASUO president Sam Dotters-Katz questioned its organizational structure and the way its funds are used. The ASUO again denied its funding the next year for similar reasons.
In an effort to win back funding through the University, OSPIRG created a ballot measure during this year’s primary election asking students whether the ASUO should “fund OSPIRG at a level that allows OSPIRG to hire professional staff to advocate on behalf of students locally, statewide, and nationally in places like the State Legislature and Congress.”
Ballot measures on group funding in ASUO elections aim merely at demonstrating either support or opposition for a position among students, because they represent the only way for the student government to ask students about policy directly. The ASUO’s rules do not allow the student government to make funding decisions directly through the ballot.
The measure passed by a narrow margin — it was the closest of the campus-wide races on the ballot — which had OSPIRG’s opponents as well as its supporters claiming victory.
ASUO Sen. Demic Tipitino, a campaign manager for the Reality Check slate that opposes OSPIRG, said the fact that the slate’s candidates finished above their opponents in every race on the ballot makes more of a difference in whether OSPIRG’s funding will be granted next year, because ultimately it is those holding office who decide on whether OSPIRG gets funding.
“The ballot measure, in the end, is non-binding,” Tipitino said. “Getting our candidates elected is what really matters.”
He also pointed to the fact that OSPIRG had outspent its opponents by a substantial distance. He estimated Reality Check’s spending on opposing OSPIRG at less than $40, while Students for OSPIRG, the campaign in support of the ballot measure, spent more than $3,000. Most of that money came from the statewide OSPIRG organization, to which Tipitino objected.
“That’s like Canadians donating money to American elections,” he said.
However, OSPIRG’s student board chairperson Charles Denson said the election results still demonstrated OSPIRG has the support of a large number of students who care about the ASUO.
“I can’t really say whether it’s full representation (of students’ will),” he said. “But you can say that about all elections. What it does show is a lot of students are in support of OSPIRG.”
He also said the elections for other positions were less conclusive. Though Reality Check won two of the races for offices that directly affect OSPIRG’s budget, two more are still in play for the general election. “I don’t know who’s going to get elected for the other seats, or how those people are going to vote in nine months,” Denson said.
OSPIRG still faces obstacles in returning to the ASUO’s budget. The roughly $120,000 it is expected to request will have to compete with an increase of more than $50,000 in the contract the ASUO uses to fund student bus passes and the cost of student tickets for the Civil War football game in 2011, when Autzen Stadium will host the game next.
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