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Sarah Skllaa, political adanca mdor, partlclpataa In tho ASUN mock daction Wadnaaday aftamaan.
Stoney, Nelson win mock election
By Wick Wlttgn
Staff Reporter
If Wednesday’s mock election
at UNL was any indication, the
upcoming general election may be
a close one.
In the mock election, which was
sponsored by ASUN, Republican
candidate Jan Stoney took the sen
ate seat with 54.5 percent of the
vote. Her opponent, Sen. Bob
Kerrey, captured 45.5 percent of
the votes. Kerrey leads Stoney in
statewide polls.
Students cast 169 ballots in the
election, which was held from 9
a.m. to 7 p.m. in the student unions,
said Shawntell Hurtgen, chair
woman of the Association of Stu
i dents of the University of
Nebraska’s Government Liaison
Committee.
Students voted for candidates
in the gubernatorial and senatorial
races. They also voted for the can
didates in their congressional dis
trict.
Hurtgen said GLC organized
the election to increase student
awareness about the upcoming
Nov. 8 election.
In the gubernatorial vote, in
cumbent Gov. Ben Nelson defeated
Republican challenger Gene
Spence. Nelson got 96 votes, or
57.4 percent of the vote. Spence,
who has said Nelson would prob
ably win the general election,
earned 68 votes, or 40.7 percent.
Write-in gubernatorial candi
date Ernie Chambers earned three
votes, or 1.7 percent.
In the 1st Congressional Dis
trict, eight-term incumbent Rep.
Doug Bereuter won over Demo
cratic challenger Patrick Combs,
with 86 votes or 76.7 percent of the
vote. Combs earned 26 votes, or
23.3 percent of the total.
In the 2nd District race, Jon
Christensen earned 60 percent of
the vote while Democratic incum
bent Peter Hoagland got 40 per
cent.
In the 3rd District, Rep. Bill
Barrett defeated Democratic chal
lenger Gil Chapin by taking 83.8
percent of the vote, or 26 ballots.
Chapin earned just five votes, or
16.1 percent.
Hurtgen said the mock vote was
the culmination of a three-phase
GLC project to increase voter in
volvement.
During the first phase, the group
tried to get students to register to
vote. Secondly, GLC supported the
national Project Voteamart pro
gram at UNL. Project VoteSmart
is a non-profit group that spreads
information about candidates.
The final step was the mock
election.
Hurtgen said these steps were
taken to make students aware of
the upcoming election and to en
courage them to take part in it.
“I think it’s hard to encourage
students to vote because no one’s
winning anything right now,”
Hurtgen said. ”1 think if we make
people aware an election is com
ing up soon, we’ve reached our
goal.’’
! Taxes, university heat up Legislature race
b I
! ByPiPniJinww
’ Senior Reporter
Robert Van Valkenburg says he’s
obsessed with defeating Sen. Don
Wesely in the race for the
Legislature’s 26th district seat.
“I’m not ob
9M|[A]hI sessed with get
ISUSlMll ,'nK Don
W Wesely’s seat.”
^2 ■ Van Valkenburg
said “I’m ob
c? ' I sessed with get
f I ting him out of it,
U because we can't
SBBjqBPlBjJ afford him."
HHIHH Wesely, who is
chairman of the Legislature’s com
mittees for health and human ser
vices and for banking, has held the
seat since 1978.
But Wesely said he could lead the
state through many tough issues.
In the last 16 years, Wesely said
he passed about 300 bills dealing
with a wide range of issues. All of
those bills helped Nebraskans, he said.
“I consider that a big accomplish
ment,” Wesely said. “I’ve had a lot of
success in the Legislature. I've done
a lot.”
The senator said he had passed
many bills improving health care in
the state. He said he was working on
additional health-care bills that would
provide health-care coverage for more
Nebraskans.
He said he also introduced the
Sjovemor’s welfare bill and pushed
or cost containment for Medicaid, a
large part of the state’s budget.
In addition, Wesely said he had
worked on several economic devel
opment proposals, including some
that created jobs and tax credits.
Wesely was chairman of the eco
nomic development committee dur
ing the 1980s.
Both candidates said funding for
the University of Nebraska should be
a priority for the Legislature.
Van Valkenburg said NU’s fund
ing should not be increased but real
located within the university.
“We have layer upon layer of un
needed bureaucracy in the univer
sity,” he said. “When the president of
the University of Nebraska makes as
much as the president of the United
States, it’s obscene. When the dean
of the law college makes more than
the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme
Court, it’s obscene.”
Van Valkenburg said he would
push the Legislature to take money
from administrators and reallocate it
to faculty and other departments that
needed it.
“People are more interested in the
classroom rather than the conference
room, he said.
Tuition would go down if the uni
versity eliminated its unneeded bu
reaucracy, Van Valkenburg said.
"Education is the senior responsi
bility of American society, and we
have to attend to it," he said. "But
that's not to say we have to be waste
ful spenders while we're doing it."
Wesely said he was a long-time
advocate for the university.
He said the Legislature fought a
never-ending battle to meet the bind
ing needs of the entire state. Meeting
NU's funding needs is a central part
of that battle, he said.
The university has tremendous
need for more money, Wesely said.
"There are those who argue that
the university has lots of money and
can make cuts, but from what I’ve
seen, that’s not my perception," he
See LEGISLATURE on 3
Students
not likely
to vote
By Mattlww Walt*
Senior Reporter
With a week remaining before the
Nov. 8 election, the whirlwind of
campaigning has produced a pretty
consistent sentiment among most
college students.
Ho hum.
John Hibbing, a political science
professor, said 18- to 24-year-olds,
the largest age group at the univer
sity, were least likely to vote in an
election.
He said in a mid-term election
such as this, where only around 35
percent of those eligible actually
voted, the number of 18- to 24-year
olds voting would dip even lower.
Members of this age group don’t
vote because they didn’t have roots
in the community, Hibbing said. They
don’t have children in the schools;
they don’t own homes, and they
haven’t had to nay a lot of taxes.
Citizens without a clear stake in
the political system won’t partici
pate, he said.
Also, Hibbing said, students often
split time between school, work, liv
ing at school and living at home. He
said those factors could keep people
from registering and voting.
Pam Ronne, a sophomore psychol
ogy major, said she would not vote
because she had not registered.
“I’ve been lazy,’’ she said. “I don’t
See VOTE on 6
Police .
to examine
relations
By Chad Lf«i
Staff Reportef
No scope or timetable has been set
for reviewing the relations between
university and Lincoln police, the
university police chief said Wednes
day.
Chief Ken Cauble said the review
process requested by Chancellor Gra
ham Spanier could take as long as a
month or as short as a day, depending
on which parts of police policy, called
the Mutual Aid Agreement, were
considered.
Spanier’s request came after he
received a report last week from the
Special Committee to Review Uni
versity of Nebraska-Lincoln Police
Policies and Procedures.
The chancellor created the com
mittee to review the University Po
lice Department’s role in the Oct. 1
death of Francisco Renteria.
On Sept. 30, University Police
Officer Charlotte Veskrna mistook
Renteria for a man violating a protec
tion order. Renteria died the day after
police attempted to arrest him.
After reading the committee re
port on the incident, Spanier requested
that university and Lincoln police
reword the agreement between the
two agencies.
Spanier wants to narrow the
university’s jurisdiction in off-cam
pus intervention to “situations of
See AGREEMENT on 3