In this case, the same bureaucracy that used student money to litter Price Center with useless flat-screen TVs is avoiding cutting its own spending or raising revenue from its specific users and tenants. Instead, they’re coming to raid the pocketbooks of all students — even those of us who rarely use University Centers. The bureaucrats and a few select groups of students have far more to gain from this referendum than most students do, so it’s not surprising that they are doing everything in their power to stack the deck in favor of it passing.

The last-minute inclusion of this referendum on the ballot and the breathtakingly unconstitutional and anti-free speech changes to the A.S. election code designed to silence opposition to referendums are all part of the bureaucrats’ strategy to sneak this through. The vast majority of students will be too busy doing actual schoolwork to even be aware of the referendum, while the few people who stand to benefit the most will turn out to support it. Thanks to the election code changes, any voices of dissent trying to educate students are now subject to the full wrath of the Orwellian campus administration.

Students, the only way to stop this overreach is to fight back at the ballot box. Vote no, tell your friends to vote no and stand up for your own hard-earned money.  

— Chris Chiego
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of  Political Science