The only thing that nearly stopped Josh Rennie from getting the USM College Republicans group off the ground was the fact that he was the only member.
In the weeks leading up to last November’s national elections, the USM College Democrats were in full force around campus, bolstered by the hugely successful grass roots Obama campaign. Rennie, however, realized that there was no group that reflected his view as a conservative republican.
“I wanted to join the college republicans, but [it] didn’t exist,” he said. During the lead-up to last fall’s election, he worked with Maine PIRG’s non-partisan “Get Out The Vote” effort. But at the same time, Rennie saw a need for a more institutional representation at USM for student conservatives.
Rennie, a freshman finance major, says that having a group advocating conservative issues is necessary for a school like USM, where it seems to him that a majority of students lean to the left.
“It’s definitely overwhelmingly liberal,” he said.
Rennie says that it’s not just students and student groups who are liberal – a large number of professors are as well.
“But that’s why there is such a strong need [for this group], because there aren’t really any conservative groups. There needs to be one for those students,” he said.
The only problem he ran into was that the Board of Student Organizations (BSO) never told him that he needed to have more than one member in order to qualify as a group when they gave him the green light to reinstate the USM Student Republicans.
His next task would be to go before the USM Student Senate, and get his group’s constitution approved.
“One person doesn’t make a group”
At the April 3 meeting of the USM Student senate, love was in the air.
The 37th senate spent the first 15 minutes nominating each other for various service awards, and commending the efforts of certain senators.
“The senate doesn’t usually turn into a love-fest,” said senate parliamentarian Molly Dolby.
“We usually fight a lot more,” she clarified.
At the urging of Commuter Senator-at-large Alex Sargent, the senate decided to postpone the “love-fest,” and move on with the agenda, which included the testimonies of Grennie and USM College Democrats spokesman Chet Tetreault, whose group’s membership had been revoked for lack of attendance at BSO meetings.
Last semester, the USM College Democrats were so busy knocking on doors, running phone banks, and “getting out the vote” in general, that they didn’t notice when the Board of Student Organizations revoked their membership as an official USM student organization, Tetreault said.
“It was bad management on our part,” he told the senate. The College Democrats were holding events on every Friday, he said, so nobody was available to go to the BSO meetings.
According to Tetreault, the problem with getting their membership revoked was that the BSO froze all the money the group had saved up doing fund-raisers. The group had saved up around $500.
“Part of that kind of shocked me – that the school would do that,” he said. Once his group realized what had happened, however, he went before the senate, who reinstated the group’s charter.
It took the senate a few minutes to realize that Josh Rennie’s group wasn’t really a group after all. Marie Follayttar, student rep to the UMS board of trustees, noted that a group technically needs to have two members.
“I met with them several times and was never made aware of that,” Rennie said.
“I’ve had a lot of interest [in the group], it’s just that I didn’t try to get a huge base. I just wanted to get it created and then build up support.”
BSO president Eric Favreau says that a group needing to have more than one member should just be common knowledge.
“Maybe we didn’t spell it out for him, but. I don’t think that’s the fault of the BSO,” he said last Saturday.
“There’s a sort of an assumption and implication that. one person doesn’t make a group.”
Senator steps in
Just as it was becoming unclear as to whether or not the group would be able to form, Senator Alex Sargent volunteered to join the USM Student Republicans. “I was surprised at first, but now that I’ve talked with him, I’m not surprised,” Rennie said.
Sargent says that he joined the group mainly to speed things along.
“I felt bad,” he said last Saturday.
“I was mainly like, let’s just get this on the road, let’s get this group going. Let’s get students involved. Who cares if it’s ideologically different from some others?”
Sargent, who has registered as a republican twice, but has never voted for a republican presidential candidate, agrees with Rennie that USM is a profoundly liberal campus; so much so that some students are afraid of letting their poitical stances known.
“There are certain classes that, if you do voice opinions of opposition, your grade will suffer,” he said.
According to Sargent, who plans on being an active member in USM Student Republicans, diverse opinions should ge given equal creedence.
“I think the job of a university is to explore ideas, not matter how bad or good.”