It’s the 11th hour for the Associated Students of Madison. This board has worried ASM has done a lackluster job generating support for its new constitution. One might have hoped for a more exhaustive mobilization of support for a measure that would, after all, “rescue” our student government. The student vote on Monday and Tuesday, in an ideal world, would be a foregone conclusion. But at the moment, we cannot predict whether the constitution will prevail. In fact, we have grave doubts whether even a healthy plurality of students will vote at all.

We consider ratification of the proposed constitution to be imperative. For too long, ASM has been an unorganized mess — a punch line signifying disinterested, uninspired and frivolous student representation. In its tone and priorities, it better resembles a high school student council than an independent institution of shared university governance. This is no surprise, given a disparate, bottom-up allocation of responsibility. A new constitution with a robust chain of responsibility was a long time coming. Thankfully, we have one now — almost.

Since ASM did such a poor job promoting the constitution over the past three months, an opposition campaign (“Vote No Coalition”) found a window. Say what you will about the public-relations blunders ASM has made. The incompetence of ASM pales in comparison to the opposition’s maddeningly apocalyptic rhetoric. Vote No Coalition has made two fundamentally-unfounded charges: first, that the constitution establishes a unitary executive (the president) with few legitimate checks and balances; and second, that the president can arbitrarily slash student organization budgets at their whim.

Both of these claims are misleading, deliberate attempts to scare students into rejecting their only hope for a viable, substantive student government. We also heard for months the then-unreleased ASM bylaws contained countless evil schemes to curtail the rights of progressive organizations. True, ASM could have released the bylaws earlier. But now that they’re released, we see they’re just… well, bylaws. Boring, routine bylaws. No land mines to be found.

It is true the constitution provides for a popularly elected president and vice president, with the president responsible for appointing students to his Cabinet of Directors, the Appropriations Committee and the Student Judiciary. This is a completely appropriate move for an organization whose central struggle has been ambiguous allocation of authority. But it is incorrect to charge that the president is being given dictatorial reign over student affairs. The reality is the ASM president is accountable to a 33-member Student Senate, also directly elected. The senate can impeach the president with a two-thirds vote. And a two-thirds vote is also required to confirm all presidential appointments. Hardly the recipe for a Stalin or Mussolini.

Then there’s the question of presidential vetoes of student organization budgets. The Vote No Coalition would have you believe that the president can simply cut funding for unappealing organizations. This is not the case. The constitution allows the president to “veto” an organization’s budget in total. But this is not really a “veto” in the absolutist sense of the word. The president’s “veto,” in these circumstances, simply directs a conference committee to review the budget and made a final decision. If the conference committee has not made a decision by a pre-set deadline, the original budget will be sent to the chancellor. Far from bestowing inordinate budget review authority on the president, ASM has instead devised a sophisticated oversight process. The president simply has a right to request a review of an organization’s budget. This is much different from arbitrarily slashing finances wherever she sees fit.

We are expecting, however, that all members of the new constitutional government will be trained in their responsibilities to make viewpoint-neutral budget allocation decisions. The SSFCs understanding of viewpoint-neutrality, especially concerning Badger Catholic and Wisconsin Student Public Interest Research Group has been imperfect at best. If the constitution is passed we will continue to hold ASM accountable for unconstitutional decisions. But through the constitution’s clear responsibility hierarchy it will be easier to pinpoint which individuals should be taken to task.

We have an intelligent, discerning student body at this campus. Students should not be impressed by abstract, unfounded accusations of corruption or unitary executive authority. It is quietly hilarious to watch Vote No Coalition — a scrappy assortment of socialist and antiwar organizations — make accusations of ASM identical to those leveled at George W. Bush until very recently. Someone should tell these individuals that not every campus intiative is a personal affront to their values and politics. If the constitution is voted down, it will be a dark day for our student government, which is already on the fast track to near-permanent irrelevance. On Monday and Tuesday we urge students to vote yes on the new ASM Constitution.

And it’s online, so you have no excuse not to vote.