House says no to less voters

The Associated Students of Oregon State University voted down a bill that would have excluded students from the OSU Cascades Campus from participating in ASOSU elections on the Corvallis campus.

Representatives voted down the bill 1 to 10, after a discussion and hearing testimony from the Cascades Campus president, Rachel Mayhill.

Mayhill said she was worried that Cascades Campus students were being excluded without even having any input and without proper channels of communications having been established.

Cascades Campus, the OSU campus in Bend, currently has about 1,000 students. The campus has its own student government body, its own student fee setting procedure and pays different student fees and tuition rates than the Corvallis campus. Student government officials are appointed through a hiring process rather than elected by the student body.

Drew Desilet, ASOSU advocate, said the outcome of the vote would have little effect on this year’s elections, as the election’s packet already stipulates that only Corvallis campus students can participate in the election. ASOSU bylaws say that the election packet and decisions by the elections committee would overrule any other decisions.

The House also heard and passed JR 04.02 which lends ASOSU’s support to a technology fund request by student multimedia services.