The senate discussed amendments to the Student Government election code including allocating funds to Student Government campaigns at Wednesday’s Student Government meeting.

The election code was ultimately tabled untill the next meeting. The deadline to approve the election code is the last meeting of November which is their next meeting.

In annual allocations, $6,000 would be set aside to finance Student Government campaigns. The money would be dispersed evenly among the campaigns. 

Originally, in the amendment, $10,000 would be allocated which was amended to $6,000. 

If the dispersed funds are under $1,000 per campaign, the funds would be given out first come, first serve. 

If someone opts for the public funding, they forfeit the $2,000 cap and cannot privately fundraise to reach $2,000 if they receive less than that from Student Government. 

Students who would want to apply for funding would have to demonstrate a credible campaign. The campaign must: 

Another amendment to the election code would not allow non-Iowa State students to be on student campaign teams.

Speaker Zoey Shipley said outside groups were attempting to influence student elections. Vice President Cody Smith said outside groups fund student government campaigns around the nation.

This would not prohibit funding from outside sources. The election commissioner, Bradlee Fair, said it should stay that way. 

Another amendment which prohibits university organizations and current Student Government officers from endorsing a Student Government candidate was removed from the election code. 

Vice Speaker Cody Woodruff said if this amendment stays, he will violate it and will take the penalty adding, “My voice is important to me.” 

President Cody West said he agreed with the amendment. Last year, Cole Staudt endorsed Cody West and Smith which led to criticism. He said he would not want to abuse his position in that way. 

The senate voted to strike the amendment with a vote of 24-4-1.

Another heavily debated amendment would restrict a candidates name to only one slate on the ballot. 

Arguments brought up included presidential and vice presidential candidates having more publicity through media and being allotted up to $2,000 in campaign funding. 

“Don’t run for both because you’re afraid you won’t be president,” Sen. Chelsea Eret said. “Your heart is in the [presidential slate].”

Smith said if this was a rule when he was deciding to run for vice president, he wouldn’t have risked not being in Student Government. Others argued there are other ways to be involved in Student Government. 

Through a roll call vote, the amendment failed. 

Student referendum

Student Government debated adding a referendum to the Student Government Ballot which was tabled to the next meeting on Nov. 29. 

Students might be able to vote whether the model for the number of Student Government senators should change. The original wording was called confusing. 

Woodruff said he did not understand it until someone else explained it to him. He added he was opposed to the referendum itself. 

Sen. Isaiah Baker was against adding the referendum to the student ballot since he felt no matter how they worded it, it would still be confusing to students.

Eret proposed an amendment to the question which broke it into two paragraphs separating the question from the explanation. Sen. Wyatt Scheu proposed an amendment to the amendment to make the last sentence its own sentence which ultimately failed. 

Housing update

Smith and Kody Olson updated the senate on an ordinance that would restrict rental occupancy that the Ames City Council motioned to draft Tuesday. 

Student Government passed a resolution at its Nov. 8 meeting encouraging the City Council to not adopt a clause tying occupancy to off-street parking.

The City Council motion for the ordinance to limit one and two bedroom homes to three people and to have three, four and five bedroom homes to have equal occupants to the number of bedrooms. 

The total cap is set at five people who can rent a single home. In a six-bedroom house, no more than five unrelated people can occupy it.

Additionally, the council motioned to include restrictions based on parking spaces. 

One, two and three bedroom houses are required to have two off-street parking spaces. Houses with four rooms or above must have parking spaces equal to the number of bedrooms. 

A five-bedroom house with four parking spots, cannot rent to more than four people. 

Olson complimented the amount of students and encouraged more to come out to Tuesday’s meeting where the issue will be debated again. 

“Council expected this to be a quick and easy vote…and then all of these students showed up,” Olson said.

The vote turned into a three-hour discussion.

After students expressed they didn’t think parking was important, the city manager went up and said they were given no reason to change that aspect of the moratorium.

SCAN, or the South Campus Area Neighborhood Association was given the opportunity to give a presentation and the council did not offer the same opportunity to students, Smith said. 

Susan Gwiasda explained that Leslie Kawaler, who spoke on behalf of SCAN, reached out to the City’s Cable TV coordinator Derek Crisler prior to the meeting to set up the presentation. Students did not do the same. 

Other approved funding

The senate approved funding to the ISU Student Volunteers Services for a volunteering event on Jan. 14 to make 20 tie blankets for Project Linus.

Project Linus is an organization that relies on volunteers to make blankets to be given to children in need. The organization will be funded $300 which will be transferred from the excellence fund.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated due to needed clarification. Cody Smith said the students were not given the same opportunity to present to the council as SCAN did, though SCAN reached out to the city to schedule a presentation while students did not. The Daily regrets this error.