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ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT Printing the news, sounding the alarm, and raising hell since 1899
MONDAY, MARCH 4, 2013
VOLUME 106 • ISSUE 112
DAILYWILDCAT.COM
AZ bill to impact university clubs BRITTNY MEJIA Arizona Daily Wildcat
As a result of a student statewide lobbying group’s controversial donation to a political campaign, a bill that would allow universities to collect and distribute money for only recognized student organizations, is set to advance through the state Legislature in the next week or so. House Bill 2169, sponsored by Rep. John Kavanagh (R-Fountain Hills), passed through the Appropriations Committee on Feb. 27
and will soon go up for debate. The bill stems from the controversy surrounding the Arizona Students’ Association contribution to the Vote Yes on Prop. 204 campaign, using student fee money, Kavanagh said. The bill specifies that a university cannot transfer money to student organizations if that money will then be used to influence “the outcome of an election or to advocate support for or opposition to pending or proposed legislation.” “When the money goes to an outside group, the university has no control of how
it’s spent and state law prohibits public funds to be used for elections, which is exactly what this group did,” Kavanagh said. “We’re going to bring that money that’s collected mandatorily from students back under the protections of state law to prevent people like this student group [ASA] from abusing the money.” ASA “works to make sure that higher education in Arizona is affordable and accessible,” according to its website. The three state universities collected a $2-perstudent, per-semester fee for ASA until
’Cats help the community
the Arizona Board of Regents temporarily suspended the fee’s collection in November. Last month, the board voted to make it an opt-in fee, requiring students to explicitly consent to the fee prior to payment. HB 2169 was amended last week to include only outside student organizations, making most university-recognized clubs safe from losing funding. But ASA members said the bill seems to retaliate against them specifically.
HOUSE BILL, 9
ASUA ELECTIONS
Before vote, candidates debate fees, diversity MAXWELL J MANGOLD Arizona Daily Wildcat
MATTHEW FULTON/ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
VOLUNTEERS HELP renovate the premises of the St. Elizabeth’s Health Center on Cats in the Community Day. Other duties included painting walls, creating a Ben’s Bells mural, revamping the playground, and building toy chests. Cats in the Community partnered with the Ben’s Bells Project and Beads of Courage to round up around 400 total volunteers.
UA students, faculty come together for annual Cats in the Community Day on Saturday to help renovate St. Elizabeth’s Health Center RACHEL MCCLUSKEY Arizona Daily Wildcat
Students and faculty participated in Cats in the Community Day to remodel and improve St. Elizabeth’s Health Center on Saturday. Partnering with Ben’s Bells Project and Beads of Courage, volunteers with Cats in the Community spent the day painting rooms and murals, creating picnic benches and toy boxes, making bracelets to encourage patients and cleaning chairs. Around 400 volunteers from all the organizations helped out throughout the day. “It’s been a godsend for us,” said Ronda Saenz, program director for St. Elizabeth’s. “We worked very hard in the last few months with the university to complete this project, so all of our staff and our patients will be so excited when they walk in here Monday morning.” At the beginning of the first shift,
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Supervisor Richard Elias of Pima County joined forces to help with the renovation District Five, Tucson Mayor Jonathan of St. Elizabeth’s was Andrew Comrie, Rothschild, Ward 3 City Council Member senior vice president for Academic Affairs Karin Uhlich and Jory Hancock, dean of the and provost, who worked in the woodshop UA College of Fine Arts, spoke to volunteers building picnic tables. “I’ve done this for seven about the project and about or eight years. I come St. Elizabeth’s. I come every time every time and it’s really Chelsea Cota, a visual a great chance to help out communications senior, and it’s really the community,” Comrie said the experience was a great chance said. “I said earlier this great for learning client-toto help out the morning it was a great business relationships. community. chance to see everyone “The client isn’t going to from the university kind 100 percent love everything — Andrew Comrie, senior of working on a level. It’s a that you do the very first vice president for Academic whole different set of rules try, so it takes a couple Affairs and provost here; we have staff telling different meetings,” Cota students what to do and said. “Really learning what suits their needs … that’s our priorities students telling administrators what to do.” Leslie Tolbert, senior vice president — whatever they want to best suit their facilities. Eventually we came out with for research at the UA, worked alongside something that they love. It’s all kind of Comrie in the woodshop. crazy to see it all come together.” COMMUNITY, 9 Among the students and faculty who
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Ahead of the ASUA general election, executive candidates debated student fees, the Arizona Board of Regents and diversity initiatives on Sunday. But one “incredibly controversial event” went unaddressed during the debate, according to one candidate. After the debate, hosted by the Associated Students of the University of Arizona, presidential candidate Morgan Abraham, an engineering management junior, noted that none of the questions referred to a lawsuit filed against the regents last month by a student statewide lobbying group. Candidates were also not asked to address the student government’s stance on the group, the Arizona Students’ Association, though ASA has made headlines for its controversial use of student fee money to donate to a political campaign last fall. “There were no issues. Let’s be real, that was about an hour of just fluff,” Abraham said. “No ASA questions, no questions like actually attacking each other of our platforms.” Abraham, who said the “main point” he’s running on is outreach and that he has “around 20 platforms,” said he believes he can better ASUA with ideas such as a weekly YouTube video directed at students and a “We the people” tab on the ASUA website, allowing students to voice their problems and opinions. In addition to critiquing the debate questions, Abraham also commented on his opponent’s performance. “I mean, it would have been nice to have actually talked about the platforms that we’re running off of,” Abraham said. “I understand that my opponent isn’t running off of any real platforms or ideas but I would have liked the idea to have shared some of my ideas that I have and the reason that I’m running.” Dylan Duniho, a creative writing junior, said he wouldn’t “grade himself ” on his performance, but he did comment on his opponent. “He kind of repeated his main concepts over and over, and they’re very ambiguous,” Duniho said. “I feel like I went into detail and specifics and he just kind of kept using the broad stroke terms for every question.” Duniho, who is running on the slogan “Engage, innovate and advocate,” added that “ASUA does a lot of great things” but that he feels there is still room for improvement. He specifically referred the few amount of students who voted in the primary elections last week. “We need to engage more students on this campus, if you saw the vote totals, close to 3,000 students voted,” Duniho
DEBATE, 3
WEATHER HI
It’s an album for those who choose to take action instead of mulling it over in a coffee shop, as there’s nary a song on Discipline and Desire that couldn’t be turned into a war chant.” ARTS & LIFE — 8
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