The issue of whether students should be allowed to submit one-signature petitions to UOSA has become a hot topic of discussion for many students.
According to a recent decision by the UOSA Superior Court, it is constitutional for petitions with one signature to be submitted and considered for inclusion on the ballot.
The UOSA Constitution states the proposed legislation must contain valid signatures from UOSA members equal to 15 percent of the number of students who voted for the president in the last general election. However, because the last election was uncontested, nobody voted for the president and therefore one vote was 15 percent.
As a result of this decision, three unconventional, one-signature petitions have recently been submitted as UOSA constitutional amendments. (See page 2)
These amendments proposed inserting the phrase “This shit is bananas, B.A.N.A.N.A.S!” in the constitution, renaming UOSA the “Cobra Command Consultant PAC” and restricting membership to only those who are practicing asexuals, have the letter ‘y’ somewhere in their legal name or fall under the astrological sign Pisces.
While we find these proposals humorous and aren’t fully adverse to having our student government known as the “Cobra Command Consultant PAC,” having UOSA deal with issues like this is a waste of time.
UOSA should be spending their time working toward the betterment of student groups and organizations, not going through the legislative process to deny such pointless amendments.
To prevent pointless one-signature amendments like these from being proposed, we think UOSA should spend its time working on amending its constitution, rewriting the number of signatures necessary to propose an amendment.
The Oklahoma Daily is pleased to provide you the opportunity to share your thoughts about this article. We encourage lively debate on the issues of the day, but we ask you refrain from using profanity or other offensive speech, engaging in personal attacks or name-calling, posting advertising, or straying from the topic at hand. To comment, you must be a registered user of OUDaily.com. Thanks for taking the time to offer your thoughts.
You must be logged in to leave a comment. Log in | Register
JJanowiak 2 years, 5 months ago
sooner_born, I think SDS failed to win any seats more because nobody knew who the actual SDS candidates were while everyone knows the incumbents (just like the advantage incumbents have in real elections). Without knowing all the facts its hard to conclusively say what caused such a disappointing recall but I feel like the whole event was a referendum confirming that most students really don't care about student government.
soonerboomers 2 years, 5 months ago
Or perhaps the UOSA should just follow the constitution and let the amendments reach a ballot. The only reason this would ever cause the UOSA to waste time is if they choose to waste their time coming up with some tortuously illogical constitutional interpretation to prevent them which then forces everyone to waste their time going to the Superior Court.
Better solution: follow the constitution and don't waste your time trying to get around it. Then the UOSA can spend all the time it wants congratulating the OU marching band and sending letters of thank you to the Norman Police and Fire Department for their bravery on 9/11 (by the way, all real things the UOSA has wasted their time on).
sooner_born 2 years, 5 months ago
It's unfortunate that UOSA has to waste its time dealing with SDS. The members of SDS have made it clear that they don't really care about making student government better-- they want to cripple it by drafting these ridiculous constitutional amendments.
Many members of SDS ran for student government and not a single one was elected. Why? Because these clowns don't want to improve student government. They are interested only in attacking "the man" to raise awareness for their organization. If SDS really wants to change things for the better, then they should work with student government to improve things instead of trying destroy UOSA.
soonerboomers 2 years, 5 months ago
Less than 1300 people voted in the last election. That's 5% turnout. The last election indicates people think the UOSA is a joke not worth bothering with. Sounds a lot like the sentiments these amendments are portraying to be honest.
JWJ 2 years, 5 months ago
JJanowiak: There really weren't incumbents - only one person who was elected last Fall was re-elected in this election. In fact, almost every single person who was elected became involved in Congress in August or later. On a separate note, the election results are what they are and the votes have been counted; call the recall elections disappointing if you want, but it seems like most people are satisfied (if not happy) with their representation.
Soonerboomers: UOSA's election results are comparable to pretty much any other school in the Big XII - the only school I know of that has election numbers they are satisfied with is A&M who elects their 'yell leaders' (their version of cheerleaders) at the same time as their student government. We can try to start electing RUF/NEKS but I don't really think that would resolve the issues that you or I have with UOSA as it stands.
Soonerboomers, if UOSA is a 'joke not worth bothering with' why do you comment on every UOSA article? Why sign petitions to place all but eight representatives on recall ballots? What you're really trying to say is that UOSA is EXTREMELY important to you but you're not satisfied with the current efforts or results. You seem to really hate thank you/congratulatory resolutions... sure, they don't create immediate, profound change, but what are they hurting? They usually take a minute or two at committee/general meetings and help to foster positive relationships with the parties being congratulated/thanked. In my opinion, that can only be a good thing. In the past those relationships weren't developed and UOSA had difficulty getting other groups/departments/etc. to work with them on student advocacy projects. I'm not really sure why they seem to bother you so much.
On a final note, I think anyone who truly wants positive change on this campus is going to be really pleased with some of the projects that UOSA and/or Student Congress will be working on next semester. E-mail us at Congress@ou.edu with your ideas/comments/complaints and we'll send them to a committee to work on. Sometimes your problems/complaints are easier to fix than you'd expect - I think with our increased membership we can take on bigger, more significant projects in the near future, as well.
bruenig 2 years, 5 months ago
This article is kind of silly. The UOSA legislative branch at least has already introduced amendments to "prevent such pointless issues." Nonetheless, the constitution as it is seems to be a double edge sword. It allows students incredible opportunities to be directly involved in a participatory way, like my and SDS amendments, but the downside of course is that people might not necessarily choose to be constructive about their involvement, like helm's amendments.
In any case, I would say this clause is not all bad. It makes the barrier to participation lower which some might choose to use constructively, and some not. To say it should be categorically done away with is shortsighted.
soonerboomers 2 years, 5 months ago
I never said I am not interested in the UOSA. I think the UOSA could (keyword could) be used for something worthwhile. It is obvious though that the representatives don't have any courage to take on serious projects.
However, it is overwhelmingly obvious that students could not care less about UOSA. The only people who vote in UOSA elections are UOSA officials and their friends. Students for a Democratic Society is wasting their time and my valuable paper time on this garbage. I am tired of seeing these stories about a body that is irrelevant on campus. I wish SDS would move on to other stuff that students wont just yawn at.