With a successful voter registration drive ending Tuesday, the ASUO Executive is faced with the daunting question — what now?
As the deadline for first-time voters to register passes, the Executive is transitioning into the second of a three-part effort to increase voter participation, said Brian Tanner, ASUO state affairs coordinator. The effort includes registering voters, educating them on the issues — specifically those impacting higher education — and encouraging them to use their right to vote.
But that’s not the only thing on the ASUO’s plate these days.
ASUO members are mounting a campaign against a response fee ordinance that is scheduled for a Nov. 13 vote before the Eugene City Council. The fee ordinance would require renters to pay the cost of repeated police response to disorderly parties.
Last week, members of the ASUO presented their own version of the ordinance, originally drafted by the Eugene Police Department, to the Council. Their version calls for more lenient regulations, as well as placing fine-issuing responsibility into the city court system’s hands, rather than those of the city manager.
The ASUO is also gearing up for Oct. 24, when “Weaving New Beginnings” — the annual reception for students and faculty of color — takes place. It is an important event, ASUO President Jay Breslow said, because it will be the launching pad in the University’s and the ASUO’s struggle to retain students and faculty of color.
But even when the elections have come and gone, the special response fee has been voted on, and the reception has kicked off the campaign for campus diversity, there is no letup in sight for the ASUO Executive office. Its busy agenda is only going to get busier, Breslow said.
“We’re doing good things,” Breslow said. “And we’re going to keep doing them.”
With Halloween approaching, Breslow said the ASUO intends to reach out and discourage out-of-control holiday parties and help students become involved with their community.
Of the many issues Breslow said the ASUO wants to tackle, encouraging campus democracy has re-emerged as a priority.
ASUO University Affairs Co-Coordinator Chad Sullivan said he would like to form a coalition of students to promote democracy and encourage students to become more active on campus.
His goal, Sullivan said, is “to make this campus one where people know they have a voice, and actually do have one.”
The ASUO Survival Center first brought up complaints that campus democracy is nonexistent last year during the protests over the University joining the Worker Rights Consortium.
Sullivan is in the process of placing about 80 students on roughly 30 committees around campus, with goals ranging from environmental issues to academic requirements. With two students splitting the University affairs job this year, Sullivan said there is more of an opportunity to establish a system of student selection. He said he hopes to have a system in place by the end of the year.
Democracy includes the idea that students become active in the system in order to promote what they feel strongly about, Sullivan said.
“I just want to encourage as much activism as possible in whatever form it takes,” he said. “I think that any kind of activism is good.”
Sullivan pointed to last year’s student activism over abortion, as well as to the students who protested against the WRC protesters. He said that while he may not agree with what each protester was saying, he thinks the fact that they were making a statement was a good thing.
Breslow said he would like people from both sides of any debate to join in, and that there are many opportunities to do so in both the ASUO Executive office and the community as whole.
“My vision for student government is that activism comes in many, many forms, and from many different places,” Breslow said. “People involved in student government should be active, and it comes from the entire spectrum.”