Commentary

The Greatest OSPIRG Ever Sold

What are the odds that a dubious political organization made up of the most diverse group of idiots managed to get refunded at the University of Oregon? Smells strange.

As with any small community, the University reflects on a small scale the workings of society at large: economically, politically and socially. When we see corruption, hypocrisy, and special interests controlling our elected officials at the national level, we can expect to see the same thing here at the University of Oregon.

Political science is essentially a study of the history and nature ofcorruption. History proves that power corrupts men and women. So whenthere is a $6.5 million pot of incidental fee money up for grabs-allocated by a group of often inexperienced and naive students-we can naturally expect a politically savvy special interest to come along and take advantage of the situation.

Enter OSPIRG.

Many campus organizations waste money left and right, but wasting money is more a sign of incompetence than corruption. The existence of OSPIRG (Oregon Students Public Interest Research Group) on the UO campus, a political interest group here for no reason other than to extract funds from fee-paying students, is corruption at its very finest. Thriving on dishonest campaigning tactics ("a vote for OSPIRG is a vote for clean air..."), off-campus sources funding their campaigns, and low voter turnout (never close to majority approval), OSPIRG exemplifies on campus everything they claim to fight in the larger society. Can an organization as such ever be trusted?

OSPIRG: A Brief History
Founded by political activist Ralph Nader and a group of leftist University students in 1971, OSPIRG is supposedly a non-partisan, apolitical organization dedicated to safeguarding the "public" interest, on issues ranging from consumer safety to industrial pollution.

As money is the necessary catalyst for almost any political organization, OSPIRG and other "public interest research groups" (PIRGs) across the country accomplish their goals by collecting funds in one of two major ways. They canvass neighborhoods by knocking on doors and soliciting voluntary donations, but to a greater extent, PIRGs use the student fee allocation process at colleges and universities to gain funds for campus organizations. Basically a façade, the student organizations exist to fund the greater state organizations.

Funding: Voluntary
Utilizing the dedication of their employees, one way that PIRGs solicitfunds is through massive canvassing campaigns in middle to upper classneighborhoods. Said one former United States Public Interest ResearchGroup (USPIRG) employee, "[PIRG] drew me in with a newspaper ad promising me good earning potential while campaigning to protect the environment." But the deal was not so good as it sounded. "At the time, I had no experience in sales or anything like that. I was fresh out of college with a journalism degree. But they hired me, and that same morning took me and three other kids out to a neighborhood in suburban Maryland." Once there, USPIRG expected the canvassers to split the neighborhood into territories, then go house to house soliciting money for the organization. "The van left us there, and would pick us up at a certain time. Since we had no cars, we couldn't leave the area, so we could either knock on doors asking for money or do nothing and wait for them to come back."

This particular employee stayed on staff for less than a week. "Thestrategy seemed very ineffectual and inefficient-too labor-intensive,anyway." These criticisms had no bearing on the PIRG's efforts, however. "They didn't pay me a base salary; all of what I earned depended on what I raised. And I couldn't stand the job. The people doing it were ideologues, and I just didn't fit into their scheme of things." Soliciting funds through voluntary donations--however inefficiently achieved--is a perfectly just way of raising money for a political organization. The more controversial way by which PIRGs gain funding, and by which we as students are all a part, is through the incidental fee process.

Funding: Coerced
Each year, student fees are appended to students' tuition bills; currently, UO students pay nearly $500 a year in the incidental fee alone. For 27 years, the fees OSPIRG collected from the student body steadily increased, culminating in a $147,000 budget for 1997-98, adding roughly ten dollars per year to each student's tuition bill. At that time, OSPIRG was the second highest-funded organization on campus-second only to student government itself.

OSPIRG runs biennial campaigns in the student elections to reclaim itsfunding and to renew its "student mandate." In the off years, theirfunding is appropriated by the Programs Finance Committee, approved by a vote of the Student Senate, and signed into order by the Student BodyPresident. As a volunteer organization, their campus activities include distribution of a renter's rights handbook, canned-food drives for the hungry, and streamwalks to remove trash from local waterways--along with campaigns to raise awareness on selected political issues. Yet, as a volunteer organization administering activities run by volunteers, how do they explain a "need" for $147,000?

That need, of course, does not derive from on-campus activities. Apartfrom the student OSPIRG, is the sister Oregon State Public InterestResearch Group--a political lobbying machine that spends money advancing "public interest" legislation. Close to 80% of the student OSPIRG budget pays the salaries of professional state OSPIRG lobbyists who work in Portland. For example, in 1996 the state OSPIRG lobbied to increase taxes on beverage containers. However, by Oregon statute, student fee money cannot be used to directly fund political causes. Therefore, money from the student PIRG (raised from student fees) did not directly fund the bottle bill campaign.

Confused?

These are two organizations with the same acronym and slightly different names, and it is done in the name of confusion. Money spent on campaigning materials comes from the state OSPIRG, which gains funding from canvassing efforts like the one described above. The $147,000 allocated by the student body to the student PIRG is pooled together with money taken from other student campus PIRGs across the state. OSPIRG cannot use this cash for campaigning. Rather, once centralized, it goes to pay the salaries of the state PIRG lobbyists to do research when they are not campaigning.

This is the essence of OSPIRG. It is a political organization withpolitical motives that uses a misleading strategy to advance a political agenda in the name of the "public interest." Of course, there are problems with this-in their administration, with their tactics, as well as an even greater philosophical dilemma.

Administrative Problems with OSPIRG
By University of Oregon and Oregon University System (OUS) guidelines,student groups that receive money from the fee allocation process mustmaintain their account on campus, with the student government Comptroller.These accounts in the controller's office work somewhat like checkingaccounts; when they need to buy something, officers from the organization fill out purchase orders and give them to local businesses that accept them. The money is then subtracted from their account.

The Programs Finance Committee appropriates money to a group, with which the Comptroller then works her accounting magic. It is thus possible for anyone in student government--or any student for that matter--to see exactly how any student organization is spending their money.

For example, the Commentator has a budget with an approved line forprinting expenses, one for production expenses, one for telephone expenses, one for postage, etc. Unless the amount is trivial, we cannot spend our printing money on our telephone line without Student Senate approval of the transaction.

OSPIRG, however, is unlike almost all other student organizations in this respect, because their funding comes in the form of a one-line "subsidy." The budget of the ASUO Executive, the only student organization with anywhere near the resources of OSPIRG, has some 20-30 specific lines in their budget; OSPIRG has only one. They are thus not held accountable to the tight standards as are all other student organizations. (There are two exceptions to this rule-our subsidy of the Oregon Students' Association (OSA) and the United States Students' Association (USSA).)

In an April 1, 1998 Student Senate meeting, three weeks before the General Elections, student senator Jenna Wasson introduced a motion to pass a potential ballot measure that would compel all student organizations receiving money to disclose their books. Members of OSPIRG showed up at the meeting in force and intimidated many senators into withdrawing their support from an otherwise common-sense measure. The Student Senate was not even making policy at this point; Wasson designed her motion to let the students decide the matter in the general election. OSPIRG's intimidating and strong-armed tactics proved decisive, however, and the motion failed.

Focusing upon this incident, and upon the fact that students could never know how much money allocated to OSPIRG actually stayed on campus, the Honesty Campaign-OSPIRG's chief opponents-won the debate in the student elections of 1998 by a 55-45% margin. OSPIRG was de-funded for the firsttime in its 27 year existence.

Defeated and without a student mandate (the term "student mandate" isitself misleading on a campus where 15% of students vote in a good year), the Committee to Re-Establish OSPIRG arose almost immediately to garner support for the following year's elections.

This Committee, grasping how powerful an opposition label of incompetence and unaccountability can be, immediately published a budget to squelch that type of future rhetoric. They did this after refusing to do so throughout the campaign.

Yet this newly proposed "budget," published within weeks of their loss in April '98, was not really a budget at all. The group would still besubsidized with a one-line appropriation in the budget book, they wouldstill not have to keep their money in a campus account like all otherstudent groups, and it would still be impossible to see how much of their money stayed on campus. This projection of expenditures was a ploy, not a budget, as it in no way bound the organization. A non-binding budget is not a budget at all.

With no money, the Committee to Re-Establish OSPIRG was more visible oncampus than OSPIRG ever was before. Suspicion immediately arose as to what strategy they would use to regain their funding; many members of student government had past ties to OSPIRG, including both the student body president and student senate president, and rumors abounded that they would attempt to regain funding through a special election.

Indeed, a special election was called for the winter term of 1999 and, as expected, OSPIRG made its way onto the ballot. Funding measures were excluded from the ballot following a series of Constitutional Court cases, and OSPIRG had to wait until the Generals in the spring to commence their campaign. (For an in-depth account of the Special election debacle, see the January 31st, 1999 feature article and February 14th, 1999 editorial of the Oregon Commentator at OC Online, http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~ocomment)

OSPIRG's Dubious Tactics
Anyone who has spent time on the UO campus can attest to the fact that OSPIRG, when funded, is basically an invisible organization. They heavily promote their few campus activities, many of which occur late in the winter term and early in the spring term before the election. In non-electionyears, aside from a general-interest meeting each term, they are rarelyseen.

Said former OSPIRG state board member Peter Knox in a 1995 Commentatorinterview, "OSPIRG relies on a short burst of energy. They'll create ahuge campaign and use all their resources to reaffirm funding. It'sbasically a big sales pitch."

So it was not surprising to see that this year, with $147,000 on the line, they were more visible than ever before, with their name attached to almost every student activity in the EMU.

OSPIRG also attempts to garner support by taking credit for policy changes that they just happen to support. As one of their objectives is increased funding for higher education, when a Republican bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives last year increasing student loan funding, the OSPIRG propaganda machine created handbills claiming responsibility for the legislation. Needless to say, OSPIRG has no office in Washington DC, nil influence upon Republican lawmakers, and had nothing to do with the legislation as it was written.

Knox claimed "they will say 'we're for clean air and clean water. Don't you want clean water?'" They used these tactics in their campaign to regain funding in 1999, plastering posters that read "Vote Yes for Clean Air-OSPIRG" all over campus.

And as student fees cannot be used for campaigning purposes, those posters were paid for by the OSPIRG Foundation, an offshoot of the state OSPIRG. Many of the volunteers campaigning for OSPIRG on the streets during election day were not students but, rather, state PIRG employees taking sick leave. With the money that the student OSPIRG gets in incidental fees, they pay exorbitant rent for a small place in the state OSPIRG office, a scheme many alleged to be a form of money laundering. And, of the $1200+ that OSPIRG spent on its campaign-thus outspending their opponents by an 7 to 1 margin-virtually all came from off-campus sources.

The ASUO Executive also funded a speech by Ralph Nader (estimated costbetween $5-$10 thousand) the day before the election, and Nader spent much of the speech asking students to reinstate the organization. Not to mention that election day conveniently fell on Earth Day.

Interestingly, a portion of OSPIRG's projected budget will fund a"democracy program," dedicated to ending the influence of money inpolitics. However, OSPIRG State Board Chairwoman Merriah Fairchild refused on a public internet newsgroup to limit their campaign expenditures. And by outspending their opponents by a 7 to 1 margin-all of which came from off campus-it is easy to see that OSPIRG is more than a group of activist students seeking to effect change on campus. Rather, OSPIRG is plainly a political lobbying machine thirsty for funding. OSPIRG is itself caught in a grand hypocrisy; though they seek to end the influence of money and politics in society at large, that same influence works to their advantage on campus, and they accordingly refuse to do so here.

Why Funding OSPIRG is WrongRegardless of the questions surrounding OSPIRG's administration and theirdishonest campaigning tactics, the funding of OSPIRG is still wrong for a very simple reason: OSPIRG does not have a monopoly on the "public interest."

Claiming a monopoly on the public interest-claiming oneself to be the sole possessor of the truth--is the ultimate recipe for totalitarianism. America is a pluralistic, tolerant, and most importantly, free society. Everyone seeks happiness, everyone peace, but virtually all disagree as to how we can achieve these goals. OSPIRG takes the route of the regulatory, grandmother state that controls and watches over our behavior. Others take the route of freedom from coercive government as the root to prosperity-that when left alone, if property and civil rights are enforced, minimal government is the best way to go. Both are free to their opinions,and one is wrong-but no one should be obligated to fund a political lobby dedicated to one side of the debate.

For example, OSPIRG seeks to advance legislation regulating the feescharged by banks at ATM machines. Interestingly, however, the smallestbanks and credit unions do not charge the fees as do the big banks. Why do they not charge the fee if they could get away with it? "I like the credit unions for that very reason," said OSPIRG state Chairwoman, Merriah Fairchild. But when pressed on the root of their reasoning, she responded "I don't know. I think they're good people."

Good people???

This type of mindset is common among many who support the regulatory state. It is a misunderstanding-or rather a non-understanding-of the market process. The credit unions seek profits as do the big banks, but they go about it in a different way. In order to draw customers away from theirlarger competitors, they use "no fee" banking as a marketing tool. The credit unions are out for profits and self-improvement in the same way as the big banks are. They simply use a different strategy. That OSPIRG is taking a side in the debate shows that they are not the sole possessor of the "public interest." By disallowing students to register for classes without paying their fee, OSPIRG essentially uses the coercive force of the state to advance its agenda.

Imagine the formation of a student gun-rights group at the University, one that would bring speakers to campus, sponsor some gun-safety seminars and a few internships. But 80% of their mammoth budget funded the salaries of National Rifle Association (NRA) lobbyists to do pro-gun research while they weren't lobbying. No one would have the gall to ask gun-control advocates to fund such an organization, but the same thing happens when we fund OSPIRG-although consumer and environmental issues are more palatable to college students than gun rights.

Moreover, students may be more than ideologically harmed by the funding of OSPIRG. Students who own stocks in companies attacked by OSPIRG mayactually lose out financially by its funding. Whatever you may think of the big banks, if my returns are hurt by OSPIRG-supported legislation, it is wrong to force me to fund an organization that spells out my financial demise.

People should always be wary of groups who claim to campaign in favor of the public interest. Believing they have a stranglehold on truth, they are often the most intolerant people in society. OSPIRG is intolerant by virtue of the fact that they force students to fund a political agenda without regard to their political beliefs or financial interests. OSPIRG is dishonest and hypocritical in their campaigning tactics. OSPIRG is corrupt in the way they hide their expenditures and seek to be "above the rules" applicable to other student groups. Most importantly, OSPIRG is a ploy to fund a political lobbying machine, and has no reason to exist at the University of Oregon. The game is about money, politics, and little else.

Jonathan Collegio, a senior majoring in Political Science and Economics, isPublisher of the Oregon Commentator.