Members of the student government’s Legislative Affairs Committee took up how to increase voter registration among students and influence Wisconsin’s upcoming biennial budget in a meeting Monday night.
For the last few weeks, the Associated Students of Madison’s Legislative Affairs Committee has been focused on how to effectively influence the state’s upcoming next biennial budget long before the legislation is formally announced.
“We’ve been reaching out to departments, other organizations and students on campus to see what issues they would like us to recommend for the upcoming budget,” Chair Hannah Somers said.
The committee is looking into what they consider to be the three main issues with the budget cuts, Somers said, including cuts to university departments, faculty retention and financial aid.
Legislative Affairs member Sam Seering said he talked to United Council and the Board of Regents to get their opinions on the budget cuts.
“They are focusing on two issues, one [of which] is funding of financial aid and putting in place a tuition cap,” Seering said.
Tuition will likely increase by approximately 5.5 percent next year, which is the maximum that base tuition can be increased each year.
After talking with the heads of several university departments, Legislative Affairs member Rachel Lepak reported each university department took an 8 percent cut and had to reduce the number of teaching assistants hired for instruction.
Somers urged members of the Legislative Affairs committee to continue reaching out to students, departments and other organizations on campus, saying they are witnessing the impact of the current state budget on education.
The committee plans to have a written summary of what they would like to see in the budget composed by the end of this semester.
Legislative Affairs members also talked about the importance of voting and increasing voter registration on campus, with the upcoming recall election bringing up regarding voting procedures.
There are concerns that students will be less likely to vote when school is not in session, committee member Kiese Hansen said. If the election were even a month earlier, she said there would likely be many more students who could vote.
Hansen also stressed the importance of students voting and sending in absentee ballots if they are unable to vote in person.
Committee member Mohammed Chohan also introduced a potential upcoming event to encourage students to vote and register to vote. Chohan mentioned getting some sort of celebrity endorsement or host for the event, such as possibly enlisting University of Wisconsin football players to help register students to vote.
Somers said the event was still in the early planning stages, but described the event as a potential ‘Rock the Vote’ event for Madison students.
The event would be held on Memorial Union Terrace and would take place in early September in order to get students registered before the presidential election.
