In the days after the Iowa State Public Interest Research Group was zero-funded by the Government of the Student Body, attitudes differed on what may have been lost by the group’s defeat.

For Chelsea Lepley, group president, and her supporters, ISPIRG’s difficulties stem in part from overzealous critics. If the group is left unfunded by next year’s senate too, the cost will be great.

“So many people were excited about it that I think it’s too bad they let themselves be overly cautious,” Lepley said. “People saw the possibilities of PIRG, and they have drawn the potential drawbacks way out of proportion.”

On the other side is Tony Luken, GSB speaker of the senate who voted to reject PIRG’s funding. Luken said the greatest loss in PIRG’s defeat is the opportunity to help fund the New Voters Project. For Luken, the group’s claims didn’t ring true.

“They promised us the difference between night and day if they were funded,” he said. “They were promising to look into student issues, but to me it seems like every other PIRG is looking into environmental issues. We already have groups that do that.”

But despite the loss of funding for ISPIRG, the New Voters project, which operates as an adjunct of the group, will continue to exist on campus with a full-time organizer until November, thanks to national grants.

“While [getting the chapter running with a staff organizer] would have solved some logistical issues, it was not absolutely critical for us to be funded through the GSB,” said Seth Landau, campus organizer for the New Voters Project.

For Lepley, ISPIRG is important because there is no statewide organization, she said, that represents specifically student interests. And the political climate in Iowa, as of late, makes it even more relevant.

“Students are not well-represented in the state Legislature,” Lepley said.

One of the most effective ways to change that, she said, is to get students to vote. And ISPIRG, working with the New Voters Project and groups like it, has succeeded in registering 2,000 students in the last two years.

But it was ISPIRG’s connection with the New Voters Project that caused the project not to be funded by the GSB, Luken said. After PIRG had first been sent back for reconsideration, the finance committee had allocated $8,000 to be used mostly for the New Voters Project.

“I wasn’t happy about that, but I thought it was a good compromise,” Luken said. “I would have loved to have funded it, until PIRG attached $31,000 for a full-time organizer.”

Landau said his group had not suffered from PIRG’s actions, due to the fact that GSB funding had never been crucial to the New Voters Project.

“No one in the New Voters Project feels like they’ve been screwed by ISPIRG,” he said. “That’s simply not the case.”

The Senate passed PIRG’s request for the funds, but later voted against approving the expenditure.

“I think it just took an extra week for the senate to wake up to its financial difficulties,” Luken said.

ISPIRG was effectively zero-funded last Wednesday by GSB after questions were raised regarding the specifics of the group’s proposed campus organizer, the concept of which seems to be at the center of the debate between the two sides.

“The reason I want a campus organizer is that I know it enables us to accomplish things we wouldn’t otherwise have time for,” Lepley said. “I’ve worked with Iowa PIRG before, and I’ve had friends who are involved with PIRGs in other states, and a campus organizer is really an important resource for student efforts.”