Sorority Elections & Agenda Setting Power

  Recently, my sorority held its annual elections to determine the new Executive Board and the other chapter officers. We accomplish this by first holding interviews with all members that are interested in the positions, then there is a nominating committee that decides who can be voted on by the chapter, and finally there is a vote held for the entire chapter. The nominating committee step in this process is a strong example of the importance of agenda setting power. 
During this years election there was some serious controversy over how the slate was set. The nominating committee decided to single slate a position that had multiple people run for it in order to make sure that a specific person was chosen for the job. Within this article this is described as the ability of a group to prevent the larger group from making a decision, and this decision to single slate is an example of preventing the chapter from making its own decision. This represents how much of an affect agenda setting has on the electoral or legislative process. Because the nominating committee had so much power over the process of the election they were able to make the decisions that they wanted even if these decisions weren’t in the best interest of the chapter. This slating committee is a small scale example of the committees that have the agenda setting power within congress. These congressional committees determine if an issue or a bill goes to the floor and this is paralleled in the election process of my sorority where the slating committee controls what individuals can be on the slate that the entire chapter can vote on.