TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010 | NEWS | THE DIAMONDBACK
TICKET from page 1 politics major Brandon Cuffy and junior government and politics major Jazz Lewis are vying for senior vice president with the SKY Party, Your Party and STARE Party, respectively. The senior vice president hopefuls said they feel they embody the larger values of their party, but they each chose a few key issues to hone in on. For Cuffy, ensuring students’ safety would take the front seat, while Lewis said he would focus on increasing diversity at the university, and Jacobs emphasized unifying the student voice. The senior vice president has a seat on the committee crafting the university’s diversity plan, and Lewis placed that role at the heart of the position. “It is really crucial to what I’m really interested in,” he said. “I want to push things to increase the visibility of all these students on campus.” Lewis, the public relations chair of Community Roots, was a major player in the STARE movement last semester, so he decided to sign on with the coalition to help make those goals a priority for student government. “The biggest issue a lot of people had with STARE was saying we were barking at the moon,” Lewis said. “We wanted administrators to
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THE FUTURE IS IN THEIR HANDS The three candidates for SGA senior vice president can play a key role in next year’s administration. The candidates are:
MAX JACOBS SKY Party Will focus on unifying the student voice Has SGA experience
BRANDON CUFFY Your Party Will emphasize on- and nearcampus safety Black Student Union official
hear us and mold a university we would like.” With STARE — Students Taking Action to Reclaim our Education — he pushed for the reinstatement of Associate Provost for Equity and Diversity Cordell Black and pressured administrators to take action after black student enrollment for freshmen dropped dramatically. Senior vice presidents have also traditionally played a large role in the SGA’s efforts to improve safety, in part by organizing the group’s annual Safety Walk. For Cuffy, who also ser ved as
JAZZ LEWIS STARE coalition Will prioritize the issue of sexual assault Student activist, Community Roots official
a vice president with the Black Student Union, that’s not enough. He said he would work to station police officers at the most dangerous spots on campus ever y night, and improve their relationships with students to make “an environment for open dialogue.” “That feeling that you aren’t in a safe environment — that can be a deterrent to learning,” Cuffy said. “…We want to create regular, manned posts so officers are standing there ever y single night. We’d get opinions from
students to get what areas feel most unsafe, and make sure there’s always an officer there.” As the SGA’s chair of public affairs this past year, Jacobs, who is also actively involved in Hillel and helped re-launch the Terrapin Times after years of dormancy, said he saw all the areas that need improvement and wanted to remove obstacles blocking effective action. “This is the time for students to come out with one voice,” he said. “The biggest issue for me is setting one agenda, one set of talking points. That way we can pursue our own students’ agenda and get the administration to listen to us.” Jacobs also said safety was high on his to-do list and that he would focus on improving the annual Safety Walk by getting more students to care. It all comes back to mobilizing the student body into a unified voice, he said. All three candidates bring experience from leading organizations outside the SGA, and they agreed that allows them to view the position through a wider lens and appreciate concerns from all viewpoints. “I had only heard of the SGA when elections came around,” Jacobs said. “I realized if I want to actively get things done I have to move into the bigger organization: the SGA.” gulin@umdbk.com
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ANNAPOLIS 2010
Medical marijuana, voter registration bills fail to pass Student journalists granted state protection, cell phone rules tighten BY AMANDA PINO Staff writer
While the General Assembly managed to preser ve higher education funding in the short-term, other bills students lobbied for had a mixed record in this year’s legislative session. A bill protecting student journalists passed overwhelmingly, but a clean energy loan program and bill allowing for election day voter registration failed, and legislators in the state House of Delegates and Senate threatened the academic freedom of a state university for the second straight year.
Clean energy loans program Members of the student group UMD for Clean Energy had convinced a receptive College Park City Council to implement a clean energy loan program that would have granted residents low-interest, long-term loans from the city to make environmentally friendly improvements and modifications to their homes. But the proposal hit a roadblock because state law prevents cities from issuing loans. A bill proposed to the legislature that would change that policy was met with skepticism. Ultimately, committee members didn’t take the leap, citing concerns about the repayment structure and defaulting. The bill did not come to a vote.
Shield law expansion to student journalists Legislators in both houses voted unanimously to extend the state’s shield law — which prevents journalists from revealing confidential sources. The bill had previously only protected journalists employed by professional news agencies (The Diamondback reporters and editors are paid, and thus were already protected under the law), and now expands protection to students who are engaged in recognized scholastic or scholarly news dissemination. Need for the expansion became clear earlier in the year, when law officials ordered journalism students at Northwestern University to reveal sources from reporting done for a project.
Academic freedom and law school funding Academic freedom took a blow when legislators tried to block University of Mar yland School of Law students from filing suit against Eastern-shore employer-giant
Perdue Farms. The suit was filed as part of a lawclinic class on behalf of environmental groups claiming the company polluted a nearby river and was in violation of clean-water laws. Legislators in both the House and Senate threatened to withhold funding from the law school, and though they ultimately backed down, some worr y that their actions set a bad precedent, particularly in the wake of last year’s threat by the General Assembly to cut funding to this university for showing Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge, a pornographic movie.
Election Day registration A bill supported by student lobbyists from Mar yPIRG failed for the second year in a row. The legislation would allow voters to register to vote on election day and immediately cast their ballot. Opponents of the bill argue it would have increased voting fraud. The bill failed to make it out of committee.
Medical marijuana Despite a litany of favorable testifiers, a medical marijuana bill that aimed to allow seriously ill patients to legally smoke the drug and purchase it from a network of state-licensed dispensaries also failed to pass. A Senate committee gave it a favorable 7-4 vote, but the bill remains stalled in the House, largely due to concerns about the program’s start-up costs and how the marijuana would be produced.
Cell phone ban Legislation passed that would make it illegal for drivers to use a cell phone without also using a hands-free device to talk on it. The bill makes the violation a secondar y offense. A bill that would have banned reading texts while driving failed in the final hours. It remains illegal to send a text while driving, however.
Rosecroft Raceway Senate President Mike Miller (D-Calvert and Prince George’s) strongly supported a bill that would have legalized card games, including poker and blackjack, at the financially struggling Rosecroft Raceway in Prince George’s County. Rosecroft, which is about 25 miles from the campus in southern Prince George’s, will likely to have to close without the additional business, possibly costing 200 jobs. pino@umdbk.com
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