Ohio University Student Senate spent nearly an hour discussing the night’s first presentation which focused on a proposal for a direct democracy model.
Ohio University students may be asked to participate in more than one election organized by Student Senate this year, with the first election taking place as early as October.
Following a presentation by the Committee for the Directly Democratic Reform of Senate on Wednesday night, senate members will now have one week to determine whether to allow a student body vote to decide the structure of OU student government.
“The (Ohio University) Student Union and Student Senate, two groups that are not typically known to get along, came together this summer and we came up with a great compromise,” Hannah Clouser, Student Senate treasurer, said of the proposed model, “I think it says a lot about this that we could reach a compromise.”
The vote would take place next month following an educational period similar to the traditional spring senate campaigning period.
During a debate following the presentation, some senators expressed concerns about the complexity of the model, which they would be responsible for explaining to their constituents before the October election.
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“It seems like we’re taking a road that’s one mile long, and with the exact same goal, making it ten miles long,” said Tyler Daniels, senate’s veteran’s affairs chair. “With how difficult it is to explain it to us in this room, how are we going to explain it to 17,000 undergraduates?”
Members of the committee explained that their main objective of the new model was to make senate more democratic.
“Democracy is many things, it’s not always efficient,” Daniel Kington, senate’s Honors Tutorial College senator, said.
After more than 40 minutes of passionate debate, senate suspended the conversation in the interest of time.
In addition to the presentation, senate passed eight of nine proposed resolutions.
Resolutions to add members to appoint delegates to the Black Affairs Commission and the LGBTQA Commission and a resolution to form the Committee on Conduct and Discipline were among those passed.
@mayganbeeler
