ASUSU looks to make big changes
A special election to decide the fate of several ASUSU Executive Council positions could be held as early as next week.
The election would allow students to vote to change the ASUSU election process or to leave it the same. According to the referendum ballot policy folder written by Peter McChesney, ASUSU president, voting for the change will restructure the ASUSU cabinet so positions such as programming vice president and athletics vice president will no longer be elected by the student body, rather they will be appointed each year by the new ASUSU president. The proposed change would also eliminate the primaries for the ASUSU elections and force presidential candidates to select a running mate.
Kevin Abernathy, academic senate president, said he feels that allowing the ASUSU president to pick his cabinet members will give too much power to one person.
“A president could say I want him, him, him and him on my cabinet,” Abernathy said. “It is completely up to him. That is too much power for one individual.”
Jake Cook, programming vice president, said he feels that even though there are some presidents that will have the sense to pick the best person for the job, there will be some people who won’t.
“We don’t elect a governor and tell him to pick our senators,” Cook said.
McChesney said he thinks situations like that will not be a problem because the president will have already been elected by the students.
“The student body president, elected by the students, will make the decision on the positions on behalf of the students, just as they already do with the administrative assistant and the PR director,” McChesney said.
Abernathy said he thinks not having the student body president choose some of the chairs actually protects the president.
“If (the ASUSU president) makes bad decisions, then it is easy to blame him and say, well, he picked them,” Abernathy said.
On one of the other issues, eliminating primary elections, Peter McChesney said he feels it would be a good change, not only for students, but for everyone running for an office.
“When the winner in the primaries is far more often the winner in the finals anyway, are we justified in having another round of elections taking candidates and their committees away from classwork when students have expressed that the elections go on far too long anyway?” McChesney said.
Cook said he doesn’t feel the same way about the primaries and was grateful for them in his case.
“If you cut out the primaries, I would have lost,” Cook said. “I was down 250 votes in the primary.”
McChesney said he thinks not only do the primaries need to be eliminated to reduce the amount of time spent in elections, but the elections would improve if a president and vice president ran together.
“Having the president and vice president run together on the same ticket will allow the two highest officers to work with someone they know,” McChesney said. “It will eliminate the chance of an independently elected president and vice president who don’t know each other, don’t get along, have different visions of where they want to take the campus.”
Cook said he feels the referendum is too much at once, and the problems the students have with the elections should not mean an ASUSU restructuring.
“A lot of people had a problem with the elections themselves, not the structure,” Cook said. “They are worried about people dressing up like Big Bird. I don’t understand how this is going to solve that. What is wrong with ASUSU now?”
-debrajoy.h@aggiemail.usu.edu