Next week, the Associated Students of Madison will have a chance to make good on their promise to rebuild the cracked foundation of our student government by putting a new ASM constitution to a vote of the student body. While the very idea of an overhaul might be enough to at least keep the disbandment proponents — like me — from gnawing at the organization’s wounds, a new governmental framework might actually result in some actual legislation.

But not everyone thinks that’s a good thing. Take fellow columnist Kyle Szarzynski, who argued in his Tuesday column, “ASM in need of activism,” that the power of the executive and relative weakness of Student Council (soon to be the Student Senate) takes power away from students. To Szarzynski, there is too much power in a potential president’s hands — with the power to introduce legislation, make executive orders and a three-fourths vote needed to impeach him, this person is nearly unstoppable!

Good.

I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but when people say ASM does nothing, they don’t mean, “Well, there are some obscure measures that only a few people know about.” They mean, “They have legislative sessions where they get reports, talk, nod and adjourn.” When former ASM Chair Gestina Sewell was asked last year if she had anything to add to the anemic State of the ASM last year, she shrugged. The Student Service Finance Committee doles out funds fairly consistently, and Shared Governance, at least from what I remember, actually made sure the administration knew students had some problems with ticket policies, accessibility for disabled students and misconduct policies. But the Student Council has no direct function other than being a rubber stamp. Sure, they’re supposed to approve legislation, but they don’t have to. They’re supposed to have a responsibility to their constituents, but most of the time their constituents don’t even know they’re represented by these people. And the ones who do don’t usually write to complain.

Which is why representing the student body and working to address their concerns is a burden best handled by placing it in the hands of one very visible individual who will have to make his case in the face of scrutinizing editorials, news coverage and blog comments. They will be vetted, if not by ASM, then by us.

When we do that now, we get a group of 33 students who cry out that we’re being unfair and that the convoluted structure of ASM means there’s nothing easy about getting things done. With a strong executive, the difficulty of “getting things done” drops off a cliff. After all, if the wrong decisions are made, you can redirect. If no decisions are made, then there’s really no government, is there?

Szarzynski has some points, however. The three-fourths majority to impeach seems like it would require a sitting president to not only stuff ballot boxes with his own name, but run his opponent down on the way out of Memorial Union. The executive orders are concerning as well, but it’s unclear what destructive order an executive could sign — or that the Senate would let such an order stand for three meetings before it expires.

However, while Szarzynski asks for more reform of our legislative branch, it’s still up to those representatives to prove their worth. Will the new Student Senate continue to sit and twiddle their thumbs in between meaningless votes? Perhaps. But the difference now is that they’ll have to try harder to do nothing. They’ll have to consider all petitions from the student body, and they’ll actually have to make a decision on legislation (assuming Senators at the very least actually introduce anything). If they fail to check the power of the president it may be due to a lack of consensus, but if they continue to do nothing it’s because they really enjoy wasting their own time.

And in reality, that’s the underlying problem every government must overcome — the apathy of its members. While we can write new rules and guidelines for them to follow, they can still sit and do nothing. Certainly, we must avoid turning ASM into a new Wisconsin Student Association — the previous student organization was disbanded in the early ’90s due to rampant corruption and abuse of power.

But at this point, complacency is much worse — and a hell of a lot easier.

Jason Smathers ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in history and journalism.