Thursday, February 16, 2017 | Volume 212 | Number 103 | 40 cents | iowastatedaily.com | An independent student newspaper serving Iowa State since 1890.
SEEKING SUPPORT Emily Blobaum/Iowa State Daily
Iowa Board of Regents President Pro Tempore Katie Mulholland looks over notes during a presentation on Feb. 25, 2016.
ISU to propose land sales at regents meeting By David.Perrin @iowastatedaily.com During the next Board of Regents meeting on Feb. 22 and 23, Iowa State will propose its intentions to make numerous property and program changes. Iowa State’s first proposal will be to purchase the Tennis Performance Center that was finished in December. The Bruce McKee Indoor Tennis Complex was an initiated build after a donation of $500,000 and a $2 million investment by the university. After leasing the property since being finished, the university will propose plans to purchase the acre of land for $2.7 million during the regents’ meeting next week. Another proposal Iowa State will make is to cancel its Community College Policy Center and Information Infrastructure Institute. The third proposal to the board is in regard to an improvement project to Iowa State’s Reiman Gardens. The $3.4 million additions that are being funded by a private donation will include a series of rock walls, water pools and plants for the southwest corner of the garden. Finally, Franklin Park, which has been leased by the university since 1960, needs initial approval to be sold to the city of Ames. Last month, the city indicated that the purchase of the park, located two miles southwest of Campustown, would be for about $166,000.
Max Goldberg/Iowa State Daily
StuGov senators vote on a resolution Wednesday that will request that all ISU administrators act to the fullest legal extent possible to protect undocumented students.
Senate calls on university to stand behind undocumented students
By Alex.Connor @iowastatedaily.com Student Government held a contested discussion Wednesday evening where the Senate passed a resolution in support for Deferred Action for Children Arrival (DACA) and
undocumented students. The resolution requested that Iowa State President Steven Leath and other university administrators “do everything to the fullest extent of their legal capabilities to ensure continued support for undocumented and DACA students and their success.”
The resolution roots from the concern that many students have regarding the current administration under President Donald Trump. The resolution originally proposed that Iowa State de-
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Lecturer: Administration ‘inexperienced’ By Brandon.Ghazali @iowastatedaily.com
More than a hundred people gathered in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union Wednesday night to hear from retired Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson during his lecture on redefining global and national security.
Wilkerson’s lecture focused primarily on the lack of experience of the officials who make up the Trump administration and what that could mean in both national and global scopes of policy and security. Wilkerson served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002-2005 and associate director of the State Department’s policy planning staff.
Referring to himself as a conservative, he spent much of the night criticizing politicians — including his fellow Republicans — and voicing concerns regarding the Trump administration. “A conservative believes that the best that’s been taught, said and done in the world should be conserved, and change only with great deliberation and circumspection,” Wilkerson said. “There isn’t a con-
servative in Washington.” Wilkerson said that thanks to a “vestige of slavery called the Electoral College,” Trump was elected with only 1 in 4 Americans’ votes. “Don’t tell me that the American people voted for Donald Trump, because they did not,” he said. “They voted through a system that is a vestige of the past that allows Wyoming, with 400,000 people, to have two senators in
the Senate, while California, the eighth largest economy in the world with millions of people, has the same representation,” Wilkerson said. An audience member asked what he would have in place of the Electoral College. “One person, one vote — in everything — that’s what democracy
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Students, officials react to voter ID legislation By Alex.Connor @iowastatedaily.com College students move, a lot. This is why Iowa State political science professor David Andersen says the voter identification requirement being proposed by Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate can create a big problem for university students. Under Pate’s proposal, registered voters who do not already have an Iowa driver’s license or state-issued ID will automatically be provided with a free voter ID card in the mail. “A lot of college students have a photo ID and a valid Iowa driver’s license, but it may have their home address or the apartment they lived in last year,” Andersen said. “College students are really hard to track because [their] address changes every year.” The legislation by Pate, which was unveiled in early January, hopes to implement tighter voter identification laws that include instituting electronic poll books at every Iowa precinct, requiring voter verification at the polling place that could entail signature verification and requiring an ID number for
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voting via absentee ballot. The bill, which has been dubbed as election integrity legislation, inevitably hopes to eliminate cheating as described by Pate, and also “instill confidence in our voting system and let every Iowan know that their vote counts.” Andersen said there isn’t a reasonable explanation for why legislators are concerned with voter fraud and voter integrity. He pinpoints when voter identification, however, first entered the conversation as a controversial topic. “It goes back to a report filed in 2002. The Bush administration looked at election integrity and they had two very well-known people – former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State Jim Baker,” Andersen said. “They said we should have mandatory photo ID, but if we do this, the government has to send everybody in America a photo ID. “You can’t put burdens on voters to go out and get one, you have to give them.” Pate hopes to do this through his proposed legislation. However, student body presidents at the three Iowa regent universities have expressed concern with the bill, saying it could “significantly reverse the progress
Max Goldberg/Iowa State Daily
Paul Pate meets with voter registration volunteers during National Voter Registration day on Sept. 27, 2016.
that we made among college students this past election cycle.” A root of their concern involves the fact that under Pate’s proposed legislation, university-administered IDs will no longer be applicable when going to the polls. “When each student is already equipped with a form of credible identification, it is unnecessary and burdensome to require them
to jump through additional bureaucratic hoops to practice their fundamental right to vote,” the three student leaders – Cole Staudt, Rachel Zuckerman and Hunter Flesch – wrote in a letter midJanuary. Andersen backed this sentiment, but recognized several of the concerns with the way voter identification currently stands. “One of the things that is
kind of unique about this proposal is it says you cannot use a student ID, which is kind of unusual,” he said. “There’s some reason for saying this because if we’re doing this to protect the integrity of the ballot, you don’t want people who aren’t citizens to be able to vote. “Well, Iowa State has a lot of international students that come here and get a university ID even though they’re
not citizens.” Pate campaigned on voter identification when he was up for election in 2014, saying that he believes, “like a majority of Iowans,” that “we need a verifiable voter identification tool to be used when voters go to the polls to cast a ballot.” He argues that, unlike the lump that the majority of voter identification laws are immediately classified as, his bill hopes to more than prevent fraud but also “reduce human error.” “The last 16 years have seen a lot of suppressive legislation come out,” Pate said. “The Republican party has pushed some legislation that [invokes] fear of voter fraud that are totally unfounded and as a solution they propose things that wouldn’t actually prevent fraud, but it does suppress the vote. “It’s hard to justify that.” The bill – House Study Bill 93 – which was formally introduced to the Iowa Legislature on Feb. 8, will also not affect the way that college students can register and will offer the “exact same opportunities currently available,” Pate said in an email. “Iowa law requires Elec-
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