Fisher to seek re-election, ASUI redistricting
Nearly three quarters through his term as ASUI President, Nate Fisher believes he’s been successful.
He organized an Idaho Student Association summit with other Idaho college and university student leaders, and he and ASUI Vice President Sarah Vetsmany have placed an emphasis on sexual assault awareness and prevention on the University of Idaho campus. So far, he said he’s satisfied with this term — but he believes there is still work to be done.
Nate Fisher
Although the official filing deadline for ASUI spring elections isn’t until March 11, Fisher said he will seek re-election for the 2015-2016 academic year.
“With such a high rate of turnover in student government, retaining any institutional knowledge or memory is tricky, so the experience I think is always lacking,” Fisher said. “I’m still learning in my position, but by the time the election happens I’ll have almost a full year of experience already done. I have some good ideas, I’ve made some great relationships and I’d say I’m confident I’m a good fit for it.”
With Vetsmany graduating in May, Fisher said he plans to run alongside ASUI veteran Katie Cramer.
“She’s wonderful,” Fisher said. “I’ve known her since my freshman year, and we served on senate for a semester together. I really value her critical thinking, and she always seems calm and collected. She’s currently serving her second full term on ASUI senate, so she has a lot of knowledge of the inner workings and the structure of ASUI.”
Fisher and Cramer are still piecing together the platform they will run on, but Fisher said he hopes to address several issues he ran on during his first campaign that didn’t get the attention they needed, including class accessibility and institutional scholarships. He also has several new ideas he’s excited about. The most ambitious, perhaps, is redistricting ASUI.
The need to redistrict comes from the lack of full representation of all students in ASUI, he said.
Fisher said in every election cycle young senators run hoping to “bridge the gap” between Greeks and non-Greeks. While the gap is widely perceived by the student body, Fisher said he believes it’s indicative of a larger issue. He pointed out that despite the tussle for representation between students in fraternities and sororities and the residence halls, the nearly 70 percent of students who live off campus are somewhat forgotten.
The solution, Fisher said, is to take the emphasis off of living communities.
“As long as I’ve been here, student representation has always been based off living groups,” Fisher said. “There may be similar, but better ways to represent the student body, though. I think the most accurate representation of the student body would be by college.”
Fisher admitted a redistricting process is a big goal, but it’s one he is confident he could make significant headway on with a second term.
He said the first step would be to explore a partnership with each college. There are many questions to be answered, such as how many seats would be allocated to each college and what kind of structure would be required internally to efficiently pass information to respective constituents. Fisher said budgetary repercussions would also need to be examined.
It’s certainly a big idea, Fisher said, but it’s one he’s spent a long time thinking about.
“We’re definitely still crafting our platform,” Fisher said. “We’re not permitted to campaign until the two weeks preceding the elections, but I’ve given the redistricting piece some very serious consideration, and I think you can expect to see some of that, if not all, within our platform.”
Hannah Shirley can be reached at [email protected]