At Auburn's Student Council meeting Monday, Oct. 15, Jacob Dean, College of Liberal Arts senator, proposed a bill to limit campaign budgets for SGA positions.
The bill states that these campaigns' expenditures limit the president to $750, originally $1,500; vice president to $750,\ originally $1,500; treasurer to $750, originally $1,500; Miss Auburn to $750, originally $1,000; Miss Homecoming stays the same at $750; school/college senator to $100, originally $175; at-large senator to $125, originally $250; and school/college officer to $75, originally $125.
"Elections have become more about who can provide the best image and who can sell the most T-shirts," Dean said.
Aurielle Williams, senator for the College of Human Sciences, agrees with passing the bill to make the campaigns less of a popularity contest.
"I think by lowering the price that each person can spend to something more reasonable, more students will be able to participate," Williams said. "Also, students who are running will have to use more creative ideas."
Wesley Clendinen, senator for the College of Agriculture, disagrees that gimmicks are not important.
"I feel like students will still be bombarded on the concourse without gimmicks," Clendinen said.
In 2009, the campaign budget was increased from $1,200 to $1,500.
Others who opposed the bill stress that gimmicks are what get students involved in the campaigns.
"We have 25,000 students, and these elections are meant to reach out to all of those students," said Amy Anne Olsen, senator at-large. "Ever since the increase in budget since 2009, there has been voter participation increase."
Dean also said lowering the budget limit will help others who may not necessarily be able to afford the $1,500 campaign fund.
Olabode O. Anise, senator for the College of Engineering, agrees with the bill.
"I think we all should support some kind of decrease," Anise said. "If you remember, we talked about making SGA more accessible to everybody, and I think doing something like this would help."
Another point in the discussion was money lost by any losing opponent in elections.
"If someone ran a campaign and used personal money to fund that campaign, along with donations from other organizations, this puts a huge financial burden on themselves and their parents to fund something that they're interested in," said Steven Sheffield, senator for the College of Business. "For students that lose that election, that's money and time that they spent that they would just lose."
Those opposed believe more research should have been done before passing the bill.
Dean clarified that hours upon hours of research have been done.
"This bill is not arbitrary," he said. "We've done hours of research and believe this is what students want."
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