OPINION & EDITORIAL
Election proves ASM beyond help
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Also by Mac VerStandig:
- How the Pentagon won the war over Baghdad and the war over public opinion (April 25, 2003)
- Hypocrisy floats riverboats casinos (September 9, 2005)
- Hate crime debate needed on campus (January 20, 2006)
Related Stories:
- Absentee votes can be cast while naked (March 7, 2007)
- ASM: Vote early, vote often (April 5, 2006)
- ASM: Vote early, vote often (April 6, 2006)
- Democracy in action (April 4, 2006)
- Womens issues at forefront (November 7, 2006)
by Mac VerStandig
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
It has been said that people have a certain civic duty to vote, and such is a theory to which I happily subscribe. One who complains about the state of affairs in any democratic organization and yet resists the ballot is surely a hypocrite of the highest degree.
Yet voting in this spring's Associated Students of Madison election has a strangely sadomasochistic feel. Leafing through the online ballot, it is easy to cast a duo of negative votes toward the costly and unnecessary referendums that threaten this campus. But in order to vote against these measures, one must too consider the various candidates seeking elected office within the student government.
Rarely has the phrase "lesser evilism" found a more apt application, as a vote in favor of seemingly any of these pathetic résumé-padders is a vote in support of a system that is so bitterly flawed unto itself as to be deserving of complete abandon.
Ironically, ASM is so wantonly disorganized that one can easily have trouble identifying the political composition of the various candidates for office. The student government works with an informal system of slates — roughly tantamount to political parties — where the various candidates may join a platform and loose organizational structure.
The problem is that these structures are so loose as to be wholly prohibitive of comprehension. In researching this column and other articles for this newspaper, I have contacted several high-ranking members of ASM, been in touch with various campus leaders and fully utilized the powers of both Google and Facebook. What I have found is a system so poorly organized and cryptically arranged that many in the ASM leadership openly profess to not even knowing how many slates there are or who claims allegiance to which.
What one does find in researching this election, though, is a group of candidates seemingly incapable of thinking outside the nauseating realms of ASM's wasteful status quo.
Many candidates openly opine on how and where they believe segregated fees ought to be spent. Few are discussing the obvious point, which is that these student taxes continued to be levied at an unprecedented level, thinning out the already slender wallets of undergraduates and supporting a long list of campus "services" that completely fail to touch the average student in any remotely recognizable fashion.
There is, of course, one group of candidates who have an answer for segregated fees: the Robin Hood slate. This is the most conservative — and best organized — of the slates, and one plank of the group's platform does address the ballooning segregated fee system on this campus.
The problem is that the Robin Hood slate is an organization barely more credible than whatever campus pinko lunatic decided the best way to cry out for the cause of freedom would be to launch a brick through the local Army Recruiting Station. These are the people who swept this campus a year ago with high promises of fiscal responsibility and who were, accordingly, placed in power. They have now held the reins for a full year and all we have to show for it is even higher segregated fees and a continuation of stunningly wasteful campus spending programs.
Indeed, when it comes to the Robin Hood slate, there is an old motto that seems fitting: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
And so students find themselves in a genuine bind. It is a high civic duty to vote, and ballots must be cast as a means of defeating the two spending-heavy referendums. But for once the marketplace of ideas has failed this campus as few suitable candidates for office actually appear on the ballot.
Gone are the days of the Matt Modells who actually had a vision to seize power and work for meaningful change. Sadly, we now live in an era of little people reaching for big offices with little ideas.
And with such being the harsh reality of ASM, it is perhaps time that we consider abolishing those very offices.
Mac VerStandig (mac@badgerherald.com) is editor in chief of The Badger Herald and a senior majoring in rhetoric.
David Lapidus (March 29, 2006 @ 2:22am):
Mac you made a lot of excellent points. I'll address a few them here...
"These are the people who swept this campus a year ago with high promises of fiscal responsibility and who were, accordingly, placed in power. They have now held the reins for a full year and all we have to show for it is even higher segregated fees and a continuation of stunningly wasteful campus spending programs."
Many of those who ran with Robin Hood last spring have turned out to be big spenders. I think this is definitely a significant reason why the budget phenomena you described took place (the other reason is because most of those who were not Robin Hood on ASM were frequently big spenders as well).
This spring though it seems that the majority of Robin Hood candidates will make serious budget cuts and aren't just big spenders in disguise. If I am proven wrong in this assertion I will be the first person calling for a new, truly reforming, and fiscally responsible slate to be created for next spring, which possesses very strict standards for how fiscally responsible someone must be to get its backing.
"Rarely has the phrase "lesser evilism" found a more apt application, as a vote in favor of seemingly any of these pathetic résumé-padders is a vote in support of a system that is so bitterly flawed unto itself as to be deserving of complete abandon."
Unfortunately there is a lot of truth to that =/...
"But for once the marketplace of ideas has failed this campus as few suitable candidates for office actually appear on the ballot.
Gone are the days of the Matt Modells who actually had a vision to seize power and work for meaningful change. Sadly, we now live in an era of little people reaching for big offices with little ideas."
Many of ASM's flaws are institutional and do not even have to do with immediate budgetary concerns. With this in mind myself, and others plan to organize a major movement for next near geared at serious structural reforms (beyond just immediate fiscal concerns) that will cross all slate lines. Its rhetoric and marketing approach will be modeled after the now famous 1994 Contract with America, its substance will be based upon the input of all reform minded people from the center, left, and right of campus.
I'll keep you updated as this develops.
Anonymous (March 29, 2006 @ 7:34am):
Another good comments from Mac I must say. Thanks for always speaking out.
I think the solution to this ineffective election is hold the elected members accountable. The only way to make this happen is to vote. With barely 10% of students voted in the past couple years, anyone could say that they are only representing less than 10% of the campus. Therefore, ASM student council became less and less important every year.
One thing I have to object though. Matt Modells was not only inproductive, but also attacked people for the good things they did. I am sure glad he finally left the campus.
Anonymous (March 29, 2006 @ 9:16am):
Right on, revolutionary brother!
Anonymous (March 29, 2006 @ 10:48am):
Where did Modell go? Student government has gone down hill since he left. He was the last one to accomplish something and the only person ever willing to stand up to anyone.
Anonymous (March 29, 2006 @ 11:42am):
Ouch
Rocco Rapaldi (March 29, 2006 @ 12:05pm):
We need a group with the balls to stand up to DEP and MCSC. DEP should be abolished; MCSC's ridiculous number of student hourlies and its travel budget need to be slashed.
Anonymous (March 29, 2006 @ 12:07pm):
Modell was an ass who only chose to alienate people on Council. Ask people who were on that Council and they didn't get much done because they were spending their time impeaching liberals instead of really trying to change the instituion of ASM.
Mac, you are wrong that Robin Hood Candidates in student government have not stood up to the challenge. David and I have worked hard to cut SEG fees in a responsible manner on SSFC. We have held up to our campaign promises. The Robin Hood betrayals have left our party in favor of SAPS and other parties that are held hostage to the GSSF groups and self interests.
We are organized to change ASM and get rid of the waste held within the GSSF system if elected. I'm sorry that some Robin Hood members dropped the ball this year. It's too bad that big spenders get elected claiming to be Republican or Robin Hood and maybe we're not screening our candidates effectively.
What I do know however is that the leadership in Robin Hood is different this year and will hopefully work to change the system and lower SEG fees.
-Tim Schulz
David Lapidus (March 29, 2006 @ 1:41pm):
Yup Tim Schultz has fought hard against spending and has been a true Robin Hood Slate representative. Like he said though, and like I said earlier, quite a few Robin Hood members this last year have turned out to be spenders...
I really do feel that this year will be different though, if not, then the Robin Hood Slate itself will have to be replaced or reformed...
Anonymous (March 29, 2006 @ 4:35pm):
Modell failed. There is too much money in the system for any conservative takeover to work. The point is for moderate, conservative, and religious organizations to demand equal funding to the liberal groups. Then and only then will fees reform happen. You have to make them wince just as much when they pull out their wallets to pay their fees as conservatives do now.
Anonymous (March 30, 2006 @ 12:21am):
"The point is for moderate, conservative, and religious organizations to demand equal funding to the liberal groups."
Wonderful idea. Raise seg fees even higher, and eventually they'll be lower. We promise.
And when the conservative groups get hooked on seg fees (CFACT) to operate, what then?
Jake Harris (March 30, 2006 @ 1:18am):
While I agree that reforms to ASM's structure are past due, I take particular offense, as a candidate, to being called a "pathetic resume-padder," and the "lesser evil" in this election. The suggestion that I am running for office for some future gain and without any substantive goals or qualifications is both insulting and blatantly false. Even from an editorialist, I expect better.
Have you read my platform or bothered to talk to me about my vision for ASM and this campus? Do you even know who I am? I am sorry for not being a radical who wants to overthrow the system and that I instead opt to work for positive change within it. Perhaps you should investigate how successful those radicals really are once they take office.
To use a Theodore Roosevelt quote that's perhaps a bit too grand for the subject matter but serves the purpose nonetheless: "It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly."
It is easy for others to look down on those of us working hard to actually make a difference on this campus. It's too bad so many choose to do this instead of inspiring us to do better.
Rocco Rapaldi (March 30, 2006 @ 7:17am):
Speaking of which, DEP and MCSC are putting on this conference, presumably with our money. Anybody know how much in paid staff time, supplies, travel fees, etc.?
http://www.dep.wisc.edu/cic/register.php
what a waste.
Anonymous (March 30, 2006 @ 10:07am):
It is not sufficient for one conservative group to get fees. Conservatives have to demand EQUAL funding. Only then will liberals have a motive to control spending. Right now, they have the best of all possible worlds in that their ideology is funded and they don't have to pay much for things they disagree with.
Taniquelle Thurner (March 31, 2006 @ 3:18pm):
AMAZING how the only people who spoke out against Modell remained anonymous. Probably because they realize they cannot stand up to what he did and don't want to have that thrown in their faces.
Modell stood up there with more chutzpah and determination to do what he thought was right than anyone else on campus. He faced down NASTY opponents - I watched it happen time and time again when people threatened him verbally and physically away from the meetings - and he never swayed from trying to do what HE thought was right for the UW. If more people had the balls and the drive that Modell did/does, then more would be getting done.
I think insisting we waste more money to fund conservative groups equally so that we can reform is an abusurd argument. THe whole purpose the conservatives want to make is that there is no need to blow this much money on groups that don't serve campus. There has to be another way to reform the system than by demanding students pay out more to groups that are able to support themselves without bankrupting students.
Hope all is well for everyone - it was a great blast from the past to get to post on a message board for the herald - it just hasn't been the same since the posting frenzy of 2002/3, but oh well... and for those considering law school (especially outside of Wisconsin, say, in California) DON'T DO IT - IT REALLY, REALLY SUCKS!
404 days to go....
