Will Giant Sloths invade Iowa State?

Probably not, but the University of Iowa’s sole student government political party, named for the stuffed sloth on display in the university’s museum, may soon find an equal at Iowa State.

A bill before the senate this week, titled “Everybody Loves a Party,” will allow for the Government of the Student Body candidates to form political parties for campaign purposes, similar to the U of I’s Giant Sloths. The senate will vote on the bill Wednesday.

The brainchild of five political science majors with close ties to the recent GSB election, the bill would allow not only for the formation of political parties, but also for a ballot construction that would give students the choice of voting straight-ticket for the party of their choice.

The bill’s author, GSB election commissioner Clint Fichter, said the formation of parties would allow for better voter turnout and combat some other trends he’s seen in his two years on the election commission.

“I just think it would be good to add to our election system,” he said. “Nonpartisan elections are usually organized around name recognition, not political principles or issues. The intent of this bill is to change that.”

The idea, he said, came early in this year’s GSB election. Once Fichter began to research it, he said, he found partisan elections traditionally receive greater voter turnout than nonpartisan ones. The parties, organized by students and centered on student issues, would naturally promote the interests of average students better.

Fichter said he also hopes the formation of parties will result in greater institutional memory of ideas between elections.

However, the bill has found critics within the senate.

“It’s a flat-out terrible piece of legislation,” said Andrew Tugan, former senator and current ex-officio GSB representative to the Ames City Council. “Straight-ticket voting allows for voters not to have to think. And while there’s a civic responsibility to vote, it’s also a responsibility to vote informed.”

Tugan said the basic motivation for creating student political parties was flawed, due to the lack of diversity among student views.

“The reason political parties exist in national and state elections is because there are two groups which have divergent views on the solutions to issues,” he said. “Up to this point, no two factions of students have supported divergent views. To clarify the point, what are these political parties going to disagree on? Taxes? Gay marriage?”

Off-campus senator Drew Miller, who added his name to the bill, said the addition of political parties to the GSB spectrum would be a positive development. But, he added, the future of the bill looks rocky.

Miller said he didn’t expect the bill to reach the two-thirds majority in the senate needed for a bylaw change.

“It should pass, but I don’t think it will,” he said. “I don’t have faith in a small minority of senators to look at the bill objectively. There are some senators who are less than perfectly reasonable.”

Megan Heneke, University Collegiate Senate Executive at the University of Iowa, said the formation of political parties at Iowa four years ago came about because of many of the same reasons Fichter has used to justify the bill. But the school’s only existing political party, the Giant Sloths, has existed somewhat in the background.

She spoke of a specific incident in which members of the party dressed as giant sloths in order to garner student awareness.

“I don’t know it’s affected voter turnout, but it adds a lot of fun to the political process,” she said. “It’s just a way to get students’ attention and get them to participate.”