THE SPECTRUM | ERIK JONASSON II
Student Government’s office during the shutdown.
News broke last night as North Dakota State’s Student Government’s President Mason Wenzel signed a bill ensuring the government would run through Feb. 9.
This came after three days of the government shutdown over budget worries, healthcare and immigration.
“President Wenzel will not accept our bill to restrict rights for Dreamers and instead focus our resources on seniors and super seniors already here,” Sen. Emma Ewen told me.
Much distress has been made over Dreamers, who are of course University of North Dakota students who have fled to NDSU seeking a better life.
“We cannot forget that we have so much here,” Wenzel said at his last address to campus. “Our town has a Chipotle, and our university offers something they (UND students) have never experienced — a decent education.”
Wenzel’s words upset those in the Senate that identify as socially conservative.
“Frankly, it is a slap in the face,” Ewen said. According to Ewen, these valuable resources shouldn’t be squandered on students from lesser than desirable locations, with her noting that,
“Grand Forks is basically the butthole of North Dakota.”
Others have also called attention to President Wenzel’s previous scandals.
“I saw him wearing a Fighting Hawks shirt on Snapchat at a UND hockey game; it is going to take a while to forget that.” Thundar, the mascot of Bison Athletics, who wanted to go unnamed for the interview, called into question President Wenzel’s alliances.
“I heard he didn’t even win the popular vote. I also heard that he planted illegal voters at polling stations, all who were from Grand Forks.” Thundar could not provide any solid evidence, but he swore he saw it on Bison Information Network’s show “Bison and Friends.”
Still, there are people that see President Wenzel’s stances and fight for a better economy as pleasing.
“Look, he is going to get rid of AnujCare, and he has started the process of fixing this great university’s economy. He has also vetoed the halt to building the NDSU Access Pipeline through Churchill field. ” Sen. Fatima Shittu told me that President Wenzel has had possibly the best first year in office.
“The mainstream media, including The Spectrum, have spread fake news and complete lies to the community here.” While the senator’s complaints are warranted, we are terribly biased here, the facts remain. The university is facing problems with healthcare and the state of the economy has some writers at The Spectrum working for stale bread.
As the government tries to fix the issues that they have, students are left with the negative effects. David Floss, who has been a senator for over a week, noted that he will not be attending Student Government meetings anymore.
While other services like blue books and scantrons have been shut down for the past three days, other services have been severely limited. Snow removal on campus has halted, causing some groups of students to be lost to the snowdrifts. Just last Thursday a group of 17 students had to be rushed to the Health Clinic for hot cocoa and blankets after walking through subzero temperatures because no government could cancel classes. It was devastating.
Hopefully, a solution is found that is fair to UND immigrants and NDSU locals, but with this leadership, we at The Spectrum are dubious.