Ohio University Student Senate is voting Wednesday on a resolution that would allow the student body to vote on a proposed direct democracy model.
Ohio University’s more than 20,000 students might soon have the final say on the structure of Student Senate.
The vote senate will be taking Wednesday would not establish direct democracy as senate’s governance model. Instead, it would defer the decision to students, who would cast their vote for or against the model Oct. 12 and 13.
During the summer, the Committee for the Directly Democratic Reform of Senate proposed a governance model that would rely on “town hall style” meetings, which would be opened to students, to increase participation in senate decisions.
The proposed model would change the role of commissioners and eliminate some commissioner positions altogether.
“Commissioners are going to be negatively impacted, especially minority-wise,” Paige Klatt, LGBTQA commissioner, said. “We’re losing votes, and I don’t think we’ll be able to accurately represent certain student groups and bodies. That’s a genuine concern that has been evolving since the presentation.”
Commissioners would be responsible for “organizing, mediating discussions and accurately reporting the ultimate consensus” for their commission meetings, Praelo Zandonadi, Academic Affairs commissioner, said.
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“I don’t think it’s a terrible idea in theory, but in practice I think there are still a lot of holes in the way it would work,” Jordan Kelley, University Life commissioner, said. “They’re just like ‘oh, we can change it later,’ but that’s not really how it works. Either we vote yes or we vote no and there’s not really time to fix the problems.”
In October, students would vote to create academic unions, where students would vote directly on senate issues and to give senate’s executive positions — president, vice president and treasure — voting rights in senate’s general body meetings.
Half of the academic colleges must vote to form unions before the model is accepted.
A debate is planned before the body casts its final vote. Following last week’s meeting with a lengthy discussion of the same topic, senators are hopeful a decision can be reached.
“I hope a decision is made, the night of, not tabled until the next meeting,” Sam Cope, Senate Appropriations Commission auditor, said. “I hope something happens, whether it’s a yay or a nay, something happens.”
Only 608 votes were cast in senate’s last special election in January 2014 to fill the empty vice president spot. Vice Presidential candidate Mary Kate Gallagher won by 72 votes.
@mayganbeeler
mb076912@ohio.edu
