Deanna does districts: Redistricting bill introduced by Speaker Santoro is a start to achieving needed reform

Student Congress is tasked with reevaluating congressional districts. The latest effort — spearheaded by Speaker Deanna Santoro — is a good start.

The rules and judiciary committee threw around plenty of ideas, like electing representatives by year or major, but ultimately settled on keeping and refining the current geographic district plan.

The changes include assigning a seat reserved specifically for a freshman student and strategically shifting some districts around.

Reserving a seat for a freshman is a good idea. Student Congress general elections happen in the spring, so freshmen can’t really participate in Student Congress at all unless there is a special election in the fall. This reserved seat will increase the diversity of Student Congress by adding a freshman voice.

The other change, shifting the composition of districts, might not seem like a big deal but we think it will decrease the need for special elections.

Santoro says districts that include dorms that are mostly freshmen are less competitive than other districts. This is mostly because the pool of students that are eligible to run during election season is smaller.

Few freshmen want to commit to living in freshman dorms as sophomores, so there usually are not very many candidates. This makes elections less competitive, and sometimes seats are not filled at all.

Adding Granville towers to the North Campus district and combining the South Campus and Ram Village districts should alleviate this problem.

We think this redistricting plan is a good one, but it is not a panacea to student government’s election problems.

It does nothing to address the often vacant graduate student seats that can contribute to problems achieving quorum. Student Congress cannot change anything about the graduate student seats without the approval of the Graduate and Professional Student Federation, and they have not been able to reach a compromise yet.

But the current bill is a solid start. The redistricting bill has survived the rules and judiciary and will move on to full congress soon. When it does, we recommend that they pass it.