“It’s not that I’m lazy. It’s that I just don’t care.” ? Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston), “Office Space.”
I think I voted once for representatives to the Associated Students of Madison. I don’t know. It might have been at 3 a.m. after coming home from a friend’s 21st.
I don’t follow student government very closely, and I don’t really care. Some might say this disqualifies me from writing a column offering some advice; on the contrary, I think I’m the perfect person to speak of it.
After all, I stand as a representative of all those students ASM needs to convert — and, as the voice of more than 80 percent of the campus that did not vote in the last election, I think it ought to listen.
I know student government desperately wants us to vote. They send out mass emails, they chalk up the sidewalks twice a year. Hell, it even shows up in members’ personnel decisions. In evaluating one candidate for a student judiciary position, ASM member Brian Jenks wrote: “Previous experience. Obviously qualified . . . Could he increase turnout, though?”
Good Lord, the poor guy was only applying to be a student judge — he didn’t know he had to be exciting enough to get people to vote. What does Jenks want, Judge Judy?
I don’t mean to pick on Jenks — at least he’s trying — but even if the student judiciary consisted of a panel of Judy, Wapner and Lance Ito, we still wouldn’t give a damn. The problem of apathy is not a matter of get-out-the-vote efforts, it’s a matter of giving us something worth voting for.
In short, these politicians-in-training need to take off their diapers and start playing like the big boys.
Members of the U.S. Congress and state legislators, though certainly not flawless, at least act with their constituencies in mind.
They bring up resolutions that really, truly matter to their voters, be it prescription-drug bills or crime or simply making the tax codes easier to digest. They have their own strong personal beliefs, of course, but they are also always seeking to increase their own chances at reelection by speaking for the people of their district. They know that if they do not have a hand in getting something significant accomplished, they won’t be in office very long.
There are show horses in professional politics, of course, but the workhorses usually have longer careers. These workhorses are not afraid to compromise or put aside personal agendas and vendettas in order to accomplish something for the greater good and seek to preserve the reputation of the body they serve.
These are the people that get the vote out. And ASM has far too few of them.
It has no lack of show horses, from the leftist loudmouths in the REACH Party to the self-proclaimed political martyrs of the Badger Party, taking their marching orders from a conservative student in Washington, D.C. They’re all trying to make a name for themselves and their cause, but they are all losing sight of the first responsibility of any politician: to serve the public.
Take, for example, last week’s ridiculous boycott of a meeting by several members. They did not want to vote on the hotly debated (by them, at least) topic of funding eligibility for MEChA, a Chicano student group, which caused the meeting to be canceled. They will tell you it was not a boycott but a case of a number of members having midterm exams at the same time.
Both excuses are equally appalling to average people like me: A boycott is childish, while skipping to study is just plain shirking responsibility.
Sure, student government might be a big time commitment, but damn it all, these people committed to it. Why should the average student take it seriously when many of its representatives do not?
What these representatives do care about is feeling important, consequences be damned, and that’s why the student body has never really paid attention to ASM throughout my three-plus years here.
To be brutally honest, most of the general student body could not care less whether or not MEChA received funds, but many do care about the Homecoming grant that was on the agenda that night. Perhaps these priorities are off base, but they are our priorities.
We care about campus events. We care about having a united student voice in battling the administration. We care about having a way to buy or loan textbooks outside the outrageously priced, privately owned downtown bookstores. We care about improving teaching quality, about having a readily available course-evaluation guide with more than just statistics.
But these items aren’t sexy enough for the show horses. Student government at UW — like student government at most large universities nationwide — spends too much time in baby political disputes without real substance.
If the above items were at stake, maybe we’d pay attention. Any grown-up politician with a future understands this concept.
But we, as a student body, are too busy to bother with paying attention to the self-important, self-aggrandizing resume-builders that clog up the machinery of student government. It’s not that we’re lazy. It’s that we just don’t care.
Matt Lynch ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in English and political science.
