After the ASUO Senate heard special requests from student groups Wednesday night, it voted down the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group’s funding proposal, leaving ASUO President Amelie Rousseau alone to decide OSPIRG’s fate.
Rousseau has said she would veto any budget that did not include at least some funding for OSPIRG. However, an override of a presidential veto simply needs a two-thirds Senate vote. Because 14 of the 20 current senators voted against any funding for OSPIRG, it is likely that an override will happen.
At the meeting, the EMU Board of Directors also presented its budget, which fell just under the amount of growth it expected. However, Sen. Ian Fielding felt the “contingency” line item in Club Sports’ budget was too low and recommended an increase there of $20,000.
That was the only amendment to the EMU Board’s budget, and its final $5,091,532 budget was unanimously approved.
After the newest ASUO senators, Kate Bidwell and Molly Bacon, selected the internal Senate committees they wanted to be involved with, the Senate heard from OSPIRG. Supporters of the group briefly presented the Senate with reasons for an appeal, and the Senate approved hearing from them with 16 in favor, two opposed and one abstaining.
There was a short period of public comment where students and community members spoke in favor of and in opposition to the group.
Students for Sensible Drug Policy advocate John Walsh spoke in favor of the group.
“The reason that PIRG is needed is … it’s the only group in the last 10 and a half years able to organize conferences about all these issues they’re talking about,” Walsh said. “They’ve been able to get hundreds of people to do it.”
Several students involved with OSPIRG also gave speeches about what the group did for them.
Oregon Commentator editor-in-chief and former ASUO Sen. Lyzi Diamond directly mentioned students who have financial aid that covers tuition — but not fees — in the first part of her argument against the group.
“(The argument) is not about people; every single student group provides an opportunity to be empowered,” Diamond said. “Those groups provide tangible benefits to campus.”
Five senators out of the 19 attending eventually voted in favor of including OSPIRG in the final ACFC budget with $45,000. One of the five, Sen. Kerry Snodgrass, said the ACFC didn’t mount a clear opposition argument for not funding OSPIRG. She spoke out in favor of funding the group with the mandatory student fee.
“I believe a vote against OSPIRG is a vote against the very merits that make up the ASUO,” Snodgrass said.
While the five senators in support of the group fielded their arguments against the 14 senators in opposition, much more of the time was spent between those 14 and the OSPIRG presenters.
Sen. Evan Thomas spoke about his social, ethical, financial and legal arguments against funding OSPIRG.
“Many PIRGs are funded with opt-in, opt-out or refundable (methods). This is a unique organization and contract,” Thomas said. “The only way you guys want to be funded is by the full student fee; you don’t want to compromise on the mechanism.”
Thomas went on to describe cases in which universities that faced lawsuits for not giving students opt-in, opt-out or refundable options for funding PIRGs. He mentioned a case that made the entire University of California system observe some form of an opt-out option.
Basically, Thomas said, the First Amendment not only protects people’s free speech, but their ability to not be coerced into speech, and lawsuits were based on this issue.
Opponents to this, including ASUO Vice President Maneesh Arora, said there was legal precedent in the Supreme Court case “Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System v. Southworth et al.” for the use of mandatory student fees to fund groups like PIRGs.
Following this debate, the Senate voted 5-14 to not include OSPIRG in the ACFC’s final budget.
After a short explanation of all the other contracts the ACFC finances, a short critique of how negotiation has gone and the work planned for future negotiations, the ACFC’s final budget was approved at $4,007,655 with 14 approving, three opposing and one abstaining. Snodgrass was the one senator out of the five who voted for funding OSPIRG who didn’t vote down or abstain from voting on the ACFC budget.
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