As you may have heard from numerous posts on Calstuff or Beetle, the ASUC elections mess is ballooning. If you missed the background and don’t want to read the play by play on Calstuff, here is the ten second summary:

• J-Council suit filed against SA executives for illegal chalking near polling places.
• SA party chair Suken Vakil speaking on behalf of executive SA candidates lies to J-Council.
• J-Council disqualifies entire SA executive slate.
• Outgoing President Manny issues Executive Order saying SA executives all take office, this illegally and completely bypasses J-Council.
• Oren acts like the President he thinks he is by issuing executive orders putting an SA friend in as Attorney General and Vishal also plays along with the SA won line.

Manny issuing the executive order giving the SA executives office is clearly illegal. The J-Council can call him on this, but with the dominance of SA will the J-Council ruling be followed? The candidates who would be executives can challenge the disqualified SA executives.

This is shady ground filled with technicality landmines. There are constitutional questions and people who are set on taking power no matter what the consequences. The University might end up recognizing one set of executives.

For the original disqualification suit, SA would have had reasonable chances if they took their case to federal court, which is the route previous whiners who broke the rules took. However after the executive order by Manny and Vishal telling the J-Council to screw itself any credibility they had for winning an appeal was destroyed.

Now the issue has morphed. The people who truly care about the ASUC are worried about its credibility as an organization. They know if the situation goes to court the ASUC’s autonomy will take a hit.

Now What?

The best case scenario I can see is the ASUC sorting itself out by allowing the J-Council the full power it has according to the constitution. This means SA admitting it broke campaign rules and accepting punishment. Having 60% of the senate is very powerful if you are the only major party. The chances of SA backing down when it might be able to pull off a hostile takeover of the ASUC are very low.

The worst case scenario is a federal judge ruling the ASUC is under the direct control of the University and the Chancellor should decide what happens. This will strike a major blow to ASUC autonomy and its power.

The middle ground is some kind of compromise. SA will let the ASUC keep its independence and the other parties will let SA have the executive offices. All SA wants is power while the other people are more concerned about the viability of the ASUC as an independent organization.

Then I think…the ASUC has abandoned students numerous times (the fees increases we voted on they negotiated, the GA-MOU, their feel good events for their 600 interns, large executive offices, decreasing funds for student groups). The fact we even had the elections without any major problems after last second planning is a minor miracle. Our fees and trust were given with the promise they would serve students. I see lies and self-serving behavior all around.

In the end all students will lose.