It seems fitting that a photograph of a mostly empty room
would so aptly exemplify the students’ frustrations with the University of
Wisconsin’s very own attempt at student government. Yet two words would suffice
for the picture appended to a recent Badger Herald news article headlined,
“First ‘State of the ASM’ not well-attended”: “Failure.
Again.”

The picture boasts the most candid shot of the Associated
Students of Madison’s well-intentioned, yet poorly named and executed
“State of the ASM” address: five students, three seated at the front
of the room behind desks as if prepared to address the virtually nonexistent
audience. The aforementioned virtually non-existent audience appears at first
glance to be one eager, but average student. However, upon closer inspection,
it is in reality Alex Gallagher, chair of ASM’s Student Services Finance
Committee, who probably knows all too well about ASM’s state.

Those familiar with our university’s student government were
probably nonplussed at the prospect of ASM receiving little to no attention by
the student body in general. After all, the average student certainly cares
little for ASM and knows even less about what it does. Look no further than the
ASM elections, where our student body embarrasses itself year after year by
thumbing its nose at the prospect of shared governance, fiscal responsibility
and whatever else it is that ASM does.

As students, we insist on a caricature of ASM that is always
comical and perpetually ineffectual. We couldn’t care less, they couldn’t be
any worse at what we say they do, and hardly any of us will vote in their
trivial elections, much less attend their irrelevant addresses. But if ASM has
failed to deliver adequate representation, as its critics are quick to insist,
then we as a student body have failed ASM.

Those who refuse to participate in democracy can hardly feel
that they deserve it. This year, only 7.3 percent of the student body bothered
to vote in an election that spanned three days. Ninety percent of the students
on this campus could not be bothered to vote for a candidate they supported, or
against one they opposed. Such a turnout reveals what the UW student body has
been insisting for years. Students are telling ASM they don’t want them,
respect them or need them. Perhaps it’s time to start listening.

When less than 10 percent of those you represent have
indicated a willingness to either condone or oppose your representing them, one
must consider his or her right to represent them. ASM may have some legal
grounds on which to operate, but it has no mandate from students to represent
them.

To end this ridiculous farce, the administration must
institute a threshold turnout of 10 percent in next year’s election. If less than
10 percent of the student body votes in the ASM elections then ASM will be
suspended until the next year when an election to reinstate student government
will be held. Each year, students would not just be voting for representatives
on ASM, but deciding whether or not ASM itself should continue to function.

ASM is not a government so much as it is a voice. It is a
reflection of us, the students of UW-Madison. It is how the administration
hears our concerns, how our voices dictate the use of segregated fees in our
control. Its legitimacy is grounded in our allowance. Yet, we call for its
dismissal by our unwillingness to even acknowledge it exists. We fail to
necessitate its existence by our lack of involvement in its undertakings. The
attendance records of errant Council members come from a realization that the
student body does not hold them accountable. We’ll point and giggle when
embarrassing pictures surface in campus newspapers, but you’d be hard pressed
to get us to cast a single vote.

The picture of the so-called “State of the ASM”
isn’t just a failure on the part of ASM — again. It is a failure on our part
to recognize the power of our own voices. So take that voice from us and maybe
we’ll realize how powerful it is.

It’s time to destroy ASM. For we already have.?

Gerald Cox ([email protected]) is a senior
majoring in economics.