Chapel Hill- In a seemingly shocking move, the UNC Student Congress voted to cut the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill College Republican’s budget from last year by 75% in one fell swoop.
On Tuesday August 27, 2013, the UNC College Republicans appeared in front of the Student Congress Finance Committee to request an allocation of funds from Student Congress for the upcoming semester. The money (about $8,000) would have covered most of the expenses of two speakers: Katie Pavlich and Ann McElhinny.
Katie Pavlich is a New York Times number one best seller, Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-Up, and editor of Townhall.com. She is extremely well known for her heated debates against Piers Morgan both in studio and on Twitter regarding gun control. Ms. Pavlich was expected to come speak on current gun issues on campus and across North Carolina
Ann McElhinny is the co-producer, along with her husband, of the movie FrackNation, and known for her work in exposing the hypocrisy of the environmental movement in her previous documentary Mine Your Own Business. Ann is known for her confrontational style and ability to discuss the issue across both ideological lines.
College Republican treasurer Amy Ellmers was there to present the budget in front of Student Congress. After giving her presentation on the budget, she was asked to defend the $8,000 allocation the College Republican Executive Board had request from student congress. Despite the repeated attempts to remind the Finance Committee about the previous successes, including the more than $12,000 spent on procuring the John Stossel and Howard Dean debate, in which close to 600 people came, and Stossel filmed his show for Fox News in the Great Hall the next day, Student Congress arbitrarily cut funding to $3000.
Chair of the College Republicans Peter McClelland and Student Congress member broke down the numbers for the Carolina Review. “The average cut from people that received funds on Tuesday was 14.6%. The Median cut was 4.7%.” He continued, “Our cut was 62.2% from our request. The numbers for last year’s annual appropriations are not readily available on the Congress website, but we had about $12,500, which means this is $24.72% of what was appropriated to us the last time we appeared before Congress.” That constitutes a 75.28% cut! He concluded, “even adjusted to a semester basis, it is a pittance of what was allocated before, 49.44% of per semester allocations.”
The question remains as to why did Student Congress cut most of their funds, even after all the successes of the College Republicans.