Ballot measures: why not here?

As states voted to legalize same-sex marriage and marijuana, this election was an exciting time for ballot measures. Referenda engage voters.

They offer the electorate a chance to directly influence fundamental political changes and make it possible for any person or organization with enough support to cast an idea to the wind of popular opinion.

Student involvement in IU Student Association and the power of students and student organizations to affect change on campus were major points of discussion at the Union Board-IUSA town hall meeting last Wednesday.

Attendees wanted to learn how best to communicate their concerns to their student government and to University officials.

For instance, Coal-Free IU wanted to know why, after fervent petitioning and lobbying during a number of years, they could not get an IUSA administration to press their concerns with University administrators.

Movement for IUSA representatives noted that a large number of student groups with unique concerns vie for IUSA’s attention and that IUSA only has so much capacity to address those concerns.

They emphasized the importance of coalition building as an effective way to demonstrate widespread student body support.

There are other avenues working toward change through IUSA Congress to pass a resolution reflecting the ostensible will of the student body and actually running a ticket for IUSA.

But the congressional process can be slow, running a ticket can be daunting and navigating University administration can be a dizzying and draining task.

Here’s an idea for an objective way to gauge student body support for an issue to determine whether IUSA should take it up as its own and press it forward with administrators: create a framework to allow the student body to decide what student-proposed initiatives IUSA adopts.

Each IUSA ticket comes up with its own initiative to run on, why not let the students directly select some?

Imagine a system where student organizations that collect a certain number of signatures by a certain date get their initiatives put on a ballot.

If a measure receives a critical proportion of votes, IUSA takes up the issue as its own.

While the onus might remain on the student entity to do a great deal of work in pursuing and raising awareness about its issue, it would have attentive IUSA support and collaboration.

Students are notoriously apathetic even toward issues that directly affect them.
Student organizations are indispensable drivers of awareness and change.

But with so many competing for IUSA’s attention, it’s hard to know which would most benefit the student body.

A campus-wide referendum might be an imperfect and incomplete idea, but it’s just one possible way in which student organizations might be able to show a tangible measure of support while getting students more engaged in the campus political process.

­— danoconn@indiana.edu