The Associated Students of Madison Student Council received criticism from members of a democratic student group Wednesday regarding the student government’s use of student segregated fees to fund attendance to the Conservative Political Action Conference.
According to the CPAC website, the conference was created to “rally conservatives, share strategies and promulgate and crystallize the best of the conservative thought in America.”
Chris Hoffman, chair of the University of Wisconsin-Madison College Democrats, spoke in open forum against the use of student segregated fees in funding travel to the partisan conference, saying it violates ASM’s mission by affiliating directly with a political party.
“This appropriation is a gross misuse of student segregated fees and should be rescinded immediately,” Hoffman said.
Jake Hollnagel, chair of the LGBT Caucus for the College Democrats, agreed with Hoffman, saying the conference has a “discriminatory atmosphere” that goes against ASM’s discrimination clause. According to Hollnagel, several conservative LGBT organizations have not been allowed to attend the conference or have chosen not to participate in recent years.
“Students deserve a more respectful and thoughtful government representing them,” Hollnagel said.
However, ASM Chair Andrew Bulovsky said he doesn’t believe attending CPAC violates the ASM constitution.
Bulovsky said students expressed interest in attending CPAC to learn how to better represent their views through training.
“ASM’s mission is to educate students and to provide services to students,” Bulovsky said.
According to Bulovsky, funds are taken each year from the travel line of the ASM internal budget to attend a conferences for training, such as the United States Student Association conference.
