If your upbringing was anything like mine, you were told you were special since the moment you learned to walk. You were special because of all you achieved. With these special achievements you were able to get into a very special institution of higher education. We can all agree that the University of Wisconsin-Madison is a very special place. Nowhere else on the planet is the thirst for knowledge and the thirst for alcohol integrated as seamlessly.
So, it is very befitting that UW-Madison has a very special student government. Only with the Associated Students of Madison do elected officials work so ardently and persistently to avoid any power or responsibility. While most elected officials cheat and steal for every last morsel of power, ASM representatives plead for as little responsibility as possible.
This special humility was evident at the first Student Council meeting of the 15th Session. First, ASM was unable to elect a chair. No one in the entire organization was willing to become the leader of the student government. You would imagine that in a gathering of so many goal-oriented people, at least someone would step up. But there were no takers. In fact it took over a month for ASM to find their new leader.
The special-ness does not stop there. Not only would no one step up to be chair –Student Council struggled to fill any seats of importance. In fact, at this meeting representatives explicitly asked which committees would be the least time commitment. These are the ‘open’ committees, which do not require a student to be elected or appointed to serve on them. I bet you can guess the most popular committees for the new representatives. Meanwhile, committees like the Student Service Finance Committee Finance Committee, the Student Activities Center Governing Board and Nominations Board struggled to find any representatives. These ‘closed’ committees have seats specifically allocated for Student Council members. Theoretically, elected Student Council members are given seats on these committees to increase the power of Student Council and provide the elected representative meaningful input to the most important responsibilities of student government.
This year, both SSFC and Finance Committee only have one Student Council seat filled, both by the chairs of the committees. The Nominations Board has four of its nine seats filled. However, besides the chair of the committee, the other three seats are filled by the chair and vice chair of ASM and the chair of SSFC. Out of the 23 members of Student Council, only five sit on ‘closed’ committees, even though there are seats for 18. As a result, committees like SSFC and Finance Committee, which rely on Student Council members to function properly, are left severely understaffed.
I am not asserting that the remaining 18 representatives do not do anything else in ASM. However, when someone runs for Student Council, they should be prepared to take on the responsibilities associated with running the government. ‘Closed’ committees have considerable power in the levying of segregated fees and managing the assets of students. Instead, Student Council members are sitting on ‘open’ committees, like Legislative Affairs and Diversity, which have not met yet this year.
While I do not wish to diminish the role of ‘open’ committees in ASM, the lack of commitment by Student Council members has contributed to the severe shortages on committees, which require students to operate. A failure by ASM to place elected representatives on these committees severely undermines the “government” portion of student government.
A representative democracy has two parts. One is a group of constituents that legitimate the government by voting, and the second are representatives who are empowered by the vote to act on behalf of their constituents. Currently ASM is in the long process of reforming. There has been a lot of talk on how to improve voter turnout and legitimize ASM. However, any move to reform ASM will be in vain unless members are willing to devote the time necessary to fulfill the duties of their post. If this does not happen, we will be left without a functioning electoral arm to our government. We will still have a dysfunctional Student Council, but at least we can still brag that we are special.

Alex Gallagher ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in history.