ASM reform judgement day(s): The Constitution vote

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The campus press has weighed in on the matter with unprecedented levels ofsupport for ASM and a stamp of reserved, but otherwise approval forthe proposed ASM Constitution. While a band of primarily far-left student organizations/”allies” are working to defeat the document (c’mon, why the charade over who comprises the Vote No group? A rough estimate of 98.75% registered student organizations have taken no formal position) writers from the left, center, and right all back a “Yes” Vote.

Over the past three days of print…

Links in favor: Badger Herald editorial board:

Students should not be impressed by abstract, unfounded accusations of corruption or unitary executive authority. It is quietly hilarious to watch Vote No Coalition — a scrappy assortment of socialist and antiwar organizations — make accusations of ASM identical to those leveled at George W. Bush until very recently. Someone should tell these individuals that not every campus intiative is a personal affront to their values and politics

Daily Cardinal editorial board:

Meanwhile, there is a small—albeit obnoxious—dissent to the new constitution in the form of the Vote No Coalition. Employing gross hyperbole, manipulative scare tactics and arguments ranging anywhere from half-baked to outright false, this coalition detests the implication of having an executive “monumental power” and the supposed jeopardy of General Student Services Fund appropriations.

Without going into great depth and dignifying the concerns of this coalition, there are copious checks and balances written into the new constitution—something Vote No folks could have bothered to read—and the budgetary process for student organizations is the same, except the budget must pass through both the senate and the executive. If the president whimsically vetoes the budget (the budget can only be vetoed as a whole, not in parts), as the Vote No coalition would suggest, it goes to a conference committee, which has two weeks to fix the budget—lest the initially proposed budget passes regardless. And lastly, if the financial codes were to be changed in the GSSF criteria, groups would be given a three-month notice to comply or challenge the new criteria, nullifying the concern of any “hastily implemented changes.”

Wow, two editorial boards and two slams on the far-left coalition. Ouch. I think the “Vote No” campaign, if they had constructed a counter-Constitution would have had better messaging because now they’re stuck defending the current structure which is in my view an unwinable argument, even if the “people” of the structure are also to blame. The formula is: good people + good structure = success, not good people + current structure = we’re all OK. Most people like Jeff Wright and Brittany Weigand, so it’s tough to argue without them there would be some massive difference in ASM performance.

As a result, the Vote No message has gotten lost, coming out jumbled to the chattering class and resulting in overwhelming media negativity. But before people jump and say “that won’t matter!” I admit, I have no idea who will “win” come Tuesday night. ASM has a history of failure (I know for a fact certain political operatives who have run successful campaigns and remain sympathetic to the Vote Yes organization were never contacted) and a motivated Vote No group stealing the support Katrina Flores could have used last week — whether right or wrong on the ASM issue — could be just the ticket to victory.

As for the DC editorial board, they make an important observation and I hope the ASM leadership passes on word to the SEC for a potential Presidential election:

Our primary concern with the new constitution is that presidential elections could possibly be flooded with candidates, so having a primary or any other measure of sifting down candidates would guarantee the efficacy of the election. It would be a disaster for ASM and the student body if an unqualified candidate won with a small majority over a plethora of other candidates.

Run-off. Take the top 2.

Cox (who makes some great points on the futility of ASM reform without larger considerations), McEwen, Paulson, Smathers, Stevens (becoming one of my favorite DC editorial writers), Dashek.

Links opposed: Szarzynski, Student PD.

I do support the Constitution seeing utility in the strong executive, especially after reading current ASM Chair Brittany Wiegand’s incredibly insightful blog post on the failures of the current system. Her faux-power as the Chair stops ASM action, not to mention the excessive demands on her singular position.

I like what Patrick McEwen and Gerald Cox have said and it’s why I also agreed with Kyle Szarzynski with the need for better PEOPLE – as he’d say, “activists” — in ASM. But as Patrick and Gerald point out: that can be done with or without the Constitution. And most likely because the inability of moderate groups and ASM insiders to slate given their focus on other items (passing the Constitution, City Council elections, even the damn Dane Marathon has some of their attention) it’s likely the far-left will control ASM in the next session if there is a Presidential election.

But little of this concerns me. The entire system of government at UW-Madison is quite cyclical. As Badger Zach noted 4 years ago, the concern over “strong armed” tactics and too much power being focused in the hands of a few has NOTHING to do with a Presidential system:

What I see as a potential danger is more members (both Conservative and Liberal) being elected and appointed to achieve personal and political missions. The real danger is not from the left regaining power, but from the RADICAL left (certain representatives on FUSE, as well as some of the organizers of the supposedly moderate ORGASM slate) AND from the RADICAL RIGHT (such as Tim Schulz and David Lapidus). Bothgroups, through a failure to communicate with or understand either their political oponents or the so-called moderates, pose a threat to undo the progress that has been made over the last semester within ASM

A fear of conservatives … sounds like the real justification behind the far-leftist hoopla today … we’re kidding ourselves if we don’t see it: add “… if a conservative won the ASM Presidency” in front of every “Vote No” argument against a strong executive and you’ll discover what I think is their real concern and helps explain why all of the sudden, in 2009, you start to see such reverance for the current structure – and general interest – in ASM. It’s all politics, baby.

Sometimes I feel the battle taking place on campus over the Constitution has little to do with the students of 2009, but those a decade or years removed, still getting their hands dirty in the battles they never quite finished.

The reality that I see happening: If an inappropriate, poor student representative, or inefficient leader is elected into the Presidency, other groups will as a result, take an interest in the elections and fight for seats in the Senate and Presidency. This will create a more deliberative ASMatmosphere with slates and robust campaign operations, bringing more student interest into the position and ensuring greater transparency as competing interests check the powers of each other. I am concerned about finances, though. I mean, where did the Vote Yes and Vote No groups get their funding for all of the signs today? I know the Vote No group had a small fundraiser at a local co-op. Could a GSSF group pay its members to campaign for someone? Down the line, it could be a slippery-slope…

So what is the status quo? A system of totally removed, highly inefficient resume padders are elected often to get their “hands in the cookie jar” of important campus positions (REAL DEMOCRATIC, right?) where the press and engaged students have little understanding of the institution’s jargon and no specific person to peg fault for the inefficiencies of the system. Look no further than Gestina Sewell circa 2008. Ahh yes, one of my more famous posts. The headline in the Herald – as should go down in campus history – is partially responsible for the Constitution we see today. A crabby CB said:

Second, how the hell can the Chair of our student government “not know” HOW or IF the event was publicized? That’s her job to know and be involved in these matters. And if it’s not, fix the system so that it becomes her damn job!

But wait, we can’t hold her accountable, since the position isn’t like the way pretty much every other major organization on campus works (and many student governments across the country), with a President or a Chair that has powers allowing them to be directly challenged. Instead, we have this half-ass appointed Chair business and it lets Sewellget away with actions such as this. If I critique her, it’s useless, since the power rests with other parts of the organization — some components of which, I’ll never understand, because I’m just a “lay student” who is shut out from ASM by the way the system works. Do you really think the average student understands what “shared governance” is? Hell no. What a mess. What a terrible mess called ASM.  

 

SSFC? GSSF? The tense Council meetings that elect the Chair? Seg Fees? ASM? ATM? MIT? The system right now is so inaccessible to the ordinary student body, something has got to change and I believe a President with actual powers is the first step in making the system work.

To no one’s surprise, the history of student government power disputes are as old as the institutions themselves. This context of the past is often used to justify actions in the present as if the glory days of ASM’s past were the result of this Constitution not being in place. But that’s just not the case. As pretty much agreed by both sides, it was the people involved and that will not change if this Constitution is passed.

Most of the so called “victories” with ASM’s past, for example the bus pass and twenty-four hour library, have nothing to do with bullhorns and hunger strikes but effective student “civil servants” who found important issues and acted upon them. None of this will change, in fact as argued it will be enhanced, by the policy directs issued from the top of the organization.

Yet “Vote No” says:

Under the current ASM structure, the 33-member council votes on and participates in ASM’s campaigns through a variety of grassroots committees. This ensures that ASM can organize students in a manner that accurately reflects the desires of the student body

You have to wonder: why is tuition increasing despite the uh, activist-led efforts in the past byASM? Diversity on campus has not improved much. There’s essentially no “social responsibility” investment campaign from the far-left at UW (while found elsewhere), the living wage vote failed, the Union South vote failed, we don’t have the Iraqi student program CAN brought up last year (I think last year), hell even CAN didn’t even TRY to get a UW resolution through the most recent ASM Council’s to oppose any sort of national or international issue. Not that they failed or were squashed by a “conservative majority” — no, they didn’t even try. Yet somehow now reform efforts are threatening their glorious methods of succeeding in “representing students”?

If the status quo is so great and/or the past was such a wonderful model, you’d see empirical results.

But you don’t.

And for every “victory” achieved through hardball tactics, loud protests, and organized “activists” you’ll find 10,000 examples of failure throughout the years.

One of the best historical contexts necessary to evaluate ASM that went neglected throughout the entire campaign? FUSE and ORGASM from 2004ish (’05?). Two slates of motiviated and progressive (FUSE on the radical side) students who wanted to change ASM.

Result? The status quo.Nothing. This utopia of an engaged an successful ASM doesn’t exist no matter how many times someone pieces together a few scraps of “success” from isolated incidents throughout a 20 year period.

And it certainly isn’t found in some socialist-far left framework. The campus “‘base” is too moderate-progressive (Obama Democrat is not Green Party). But supiciously, these so-called non-resume padders from the far-left who “truly care” about “student issues” have somehow waited until just now, in 2009, bring up endearing imagry of ASM circa-2000.

And to most, “student issues” do not revolve around the index of Counterpunch or a PD meeting. They want quality student services, good academics, and reasonable tuition. More students have gotten angry about football tickets than any social justice dispute on campus and President or not, it won’t change any time soon for better or for worse. And even on these “basic” student issues, ASM has been largely unsuccessful. Recently with the Alcohol Density Plan debate, ASM’s legislative outreach was abysmal.

There has to be a change. Give ASM the structure it needs and yes, the far-left is right: get people who CARE into office. Even if I disagree with whatever a theoretical Chynna Haas Presidency might offer, it’d be the first step in engaging students and bringing about a larger, more deliberative and competitive ASM atmosphere. In a few years when interested parties get their acts together to run for the Presidency and Senate, then we’ll start to see an ASM that “accurately reflects the desires of the student body” standard we so desperately want.

And this comes from no “in the tank” fan of ASM. Believe me.

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Then again, we could always have the trustafarian-led outrage like the NYU and New School Occupations of the last few weeks (I always thought they were protesting Columbia’s admission standards …). Read for some major lulz. The result, btw, of these efforts? Nothin’. NYU met none of their demands, except criticism from fellow professional protestors.

But this was quite the funny little scenario:

At 8pm, December 18th, over 75 students reclaimed the cafeteria at the New School University as an autonomous student center. Students from several Universities commandeered this space. Students of City College, Borough of Manhattan Community College, Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center are here participating in this struggle. This is every student’s occupation.

Can you imagine WISPIRG taking over the Rathskeller? Ha!

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