Editorial: ASU election fact check
By Editorial Board April 5, 2010 at 9:50 pm 
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As you may or (probably) may not know, the student government elections opened today.
The voting — conveniently held online from the comfort of your MyASU page — will be open until Wednesday night.
Last year about 3,600 students voted for the Undergraduate Student Government on the Tempe campus — a campus of more than 40,000 undergraduates.
But it’s possible that this year the plethora of brightly colored posters and Facebook invitations have inspired you to actually make the daunting trip to the Internet and select a candidate. (Or maybe you just think it’s funny presidential candidates Brendan Corrigan and Jacob Goulding look like long-lost twins of current USG President Brendan O’Kelly.)
But before you step into the virtual voting booth, there are some things we think you should know about the tempting campaign promises of current candidates.
Fall break and open parking (staples of some candidates’ platforms) may sound appealing, but how realistic — and practical — are they?
If you’re planning on voting for a candidate on the basis of a fall break, note that the academic calendar is set five years in advance. The calendar through May 2015 was set last fall, and sometime this year it will be set for the 2015-2016 academic year, said Katie Paquet, spokeswoman for the Arizona Board of Regents. Basically, this means that current students won’t get to don bathing suits and head down to Mexico in November, unless they flunk a lot more courses than they should. That’s not to say nobody should take up the cause for a fall break — it’s certainly valid — but voters shouldn’t be expecting fall break to get here anytime soon by voting for candidates promising that on their ticket.
Think “open parking” means you get to save $600-plus a year for a parking pass and instead park wherever you’d like? Think again. According to Corrigan’s Web site, his campaign has begun discussions with the director of Parking & Transit Services and would use student fee money to open Structure 4 on Rural Road from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. every day at no charge to students. The rationale behind this is move that students who are going to the Memorial Union or the Student Recreation Complex will have a “free” place to park.
So what sounds like a proposition to stick it to PTS actually funnels more student money to the department responsible for giving you unreasonable tickets, without providing a better service to students who already drive to campus. Not really as appealing as “open parking” sounds.
Something that you might not expect to see on the ballot is a referendum on Arizona Public Interest Research Group — then again, since the group has effectively plastered the Tempe campus with blue posters, you might be well aware of its presence.
PIRG is asking for student money — they want you to pay a fee to fund their operations.
Now, while PIRG, a public interest group, not a student interest group, certainly pursues some worthwhile issues, the problem is that those issues don’t necessarily serve students.
In 2008, USG redirected $200,000 originally meant for PIRG after concerns arose about the legality of funding an activist group. At its core, PIRG lobbies for special interests, or more specifically, whichever interests strike the group as “public.” It has no loyalty to ASU or its students, and has no right to student money.
As O’Kelly said, that money should remain in the hands of students. We’d agree.
If PIRG wants funding, why not lobby as a nonprofit organization, funded by public donations, rather than asking students to reimburse its staffers for their cell phone calls?
We all know that politics is a messy business, even on campus. Platforms are meant to be flashy, not clear. So before you click, be sure you know what you’re voting for. And if you’re curious for more info, check out our profiles of all the USG candidates online at statepress.com.
More from The State Press:
The State Press recommends:
- What expansion could mean for ASU (AZ Central Sports)
- A salute to ASU football fans (AZ Central Sports)
- ASU gets dose of reality (AZ Central Sports)
Tags: elections
“It has no loyalty to ASU or its students, and has no right to student money.”
PIRG has no loyalty to ASU? It has taken PIRG more than 5 years to get to this point. An entire group of hardworking, ASU students has cycled in and out of ASU without seeing the group get established. I think PIRG has proven the contrary: they're very dedicated to ASU.
“At its core, PIRG lobbies for special interests”
How is fighting for consumer protection, increasing voter turn out, and lobbying for textbook cost reform lobbying for special interests? I think they are important issues that really do affect students.
“That money should remain in the hands of students.”
It does. PIRG is student led, and student directed. Students decide on every issue that PIRG works on.
I have actually seen some pretty legitimate arguments against the establishment of PIRG at ASU, and I respect those who hold to them. I just don't understand running a piece that blatantly misrepresents the truth in order to sway voters.
Although you may have good points about Corrigans platform, you fail to address the other presidential candidates platforms..
How about Sharvil's interest in Prop 105 and tuition? Or his party's interest in changing dinning hours, and computing services?
Athena's platform on safety escort expansion, tuition, scholarship finder, club offices.
Goulding on healthcare expansion, appropriations, blackboard, greek appeal, and parking pass..?
There are so many more issues to address here. If you're going to poke holes, poke holes in more than just one place.
As a student of ASU closely following the student election process, I have complaints about this editorial..
The editorial board attacks candidate Corrigan's platform promising fall breaks and open parking. They claim that their arguments against Corrigan's platform are on the basis of questionable practicality and realism. Yet these arguments seem to be insinuating that Corrigan is not being transparent with students because the fall breaks won't be immediately available and the open parking is at night.
I have had the opportunity to work professionally with Brendan throughout this semester, and feel that the editorial board is unfair in the representation of his platform. One platform point being disparaged by the author is open parking at night. This is an important issue for many students, myself included. In order to utilize a 24 hour library, students have to either ride a bike or park far from campus. In the process they waste those valuable early morning hours, not to mention the question of safety regarding midnight walking and cycling.
Second, the argument that fall break would not be immediately available… well it seems silly. Why would you think that the calendar year could change immediately? What I, and most other students I know, want to know is 1. What are your promises? and 2. How do you plan on making those promises a reality?
Corrigan's website provide the steps that are being taken to make his campaign promises a reality. They are fact bases and easily tracked as they progress. Not only are they available on his website, they are listed on his facebook page, in messages being sent out from facebook, and from the candidate's mouth as he talks to students everyday on campus making sure that they make an educated decision when they vote in the student elections.
Furthermore the arguments against Arizona PIRG upset me.
The assertion that the issues PIRG would be able to work on, if students vote to fund them through this referendum, may not represent students is preposterous. As stated by the author and inherent in the name, these issues are public issues. Although students are often underrepresented as contributing members of society, they are; issues like the lack of effective available public transportation, poor standards of energy efficiency, and the rising cost of education and textbooks do effect students everyday. The assertion that PIRG is not loyal to ASU students is equally false. The organization would be comprised of, run by, and should be funded by students. This money, when students vote to pay it, would be in the hands of ASU students to higher professionally trained staff to work for them on the issues they choose.
I agree with the author that “before you click, be sure you know what you're voting for”, and as such students should look at the websites and decide for themselves if these are people and issues they want to support.
I have a few responses that are worthy of note:
“An entire group of hardworking, ASU students has cycled in and out of ASU without seeing the group get established. I think PIRG has proven the contrary: they're very dedicated to ASU.”
I am not entirely certain what this means. There are thousands of dedicated student groups on campus — do they each deserve their own mandatory fee? I think not!
“It does. PIRG is student led, and student directed. Students decide on every issue that PIRG works on.”
The GPSA assembly took a position against PIRG for this very reason. In fact, a large amount of money per year is sent to the National PIRG organization as a sort of membership fee — students have no control over that decision. Furthermore, in their proposal, the PIRG leaders did not indicate how the organization will continue to be student-controlled and directed. I think the irony here is that as ASA is trying to work out internal issues, PIRG has effectively decided to create a structure that is almost identical to the failing ASA structure.
“I have actually seen some pretty legitimate arguments against the establishment of PIRG at ASU, and I respect those who hold to them. I just don't understand running a piece that blatantly misrepresents the truth in order to sway voters.”
While I absolutely respect the position of yourself and others, I have to say that I do not appreciate the campaign that PIRG is running. The group is being incredibly sneaky in their work to squash dialogue about the issue. Furthermore, a Google search of “PIRG” and “Ralph Nader” should clearly demonstrate to students how PIRG is absolutely not a “non-partisan” organization. Finally, I wonder how many voters have been completely educated on the consequences to allowing an outside entity access to the student pocket-book. That's the real problem here.
I applaud the editorial board for taking the courage to take a stand on this issue!
Fact check:
http://students.asu.edu/node/1277
“All variations from the approved dates must be authorized by the Board at least one year in advance.”
These academic calendars through 2015 are merely proposed and still open to variation. Let's demand better fact checking from our student newspaper. The state press has a responsibility to students to present facts honestly.
(By the way, it took me all of 30 seconds to find this online.)
there are trying to say that make sure you see whats actually realistic that's what they mean
Thanks for your comments. We spoke to Katie Paquet, spokeswoman for ABOR on Monday, April 5, who provided us with the information about the academic calendars.
– Editorial Board