Wednesday, March 14th 2007
Student Action: How will the party fare?
After the words on CalSERVE the other day, it is time to look at the controlling party of ASUC affairs, Student Action.
They currently control 12 of the 20 senate seats and the four partisan executive offices. If they gain 2 seats this election they will hold a supermajority and effectively control everything the ASUC does.
There are two things that can stop or slow them down. The first is good competition. If CalSERVE runs a strong slate of many (7+) senate candidates and there are good independent and minor party candidates SA could drop below 10 seats.
The second thing that could stop SA is the history of their own misdeeds. I firmly believe if students knew what happened after the elections of last year and then the attempted payment of $22,000 SA’s fortunes would drop like a rock. (Summary of summer here and $22,000 with lots of commentaryhere.)
Student Action’s history of omissions of truth are ongoing. Two good examples are DONE! fliers I saw on Monday.
$10 RSF Membership Fee
Every student has to pay $40 for the RSF per semester regardless of whether or not they use it. If a student wants to be granted the privilege of using the RSF they must pay an additional $10 for a total of $50. This is the favorite flier of both me and Beetle.
Greek Philanthropy Fund
The Greek Philanthropy Fund has been around. It was in place two years ago at least. I don’t know the history of its creation, but it was not when I was a student here.
I thought, maybe they increased the size of the fund. So I went to the ASUC website. (Note: last year there was a flier that said something about webcasting senate meetings. I have never seen, nor heard of anyone viewing such a webcast. This was claimed as DONE! a year ago.) I could go on a tangent about the ASUC website, but I will let you see for yourself. I went to the Documentation tab and found a budget, for 2005-2006. Luckily, I had saved on my computer the 06-07 budget from when I saw it almost a year ago. After some searching I found the 06-07 budget online under student organizations. Through this neglect to remove the old budget, you too can discover something I did. The Greek Philanthropy Fund DECREASED this past year.
Who needs accomplishments when you can put out meaningless crap like that?
Candidates
Student Action’s executive candidates have not been officially announced, so I can’t say anything about them. Some rumors have been seen on Beetle Beat, which I would judge as more fact then fiction. I don’t think Ilana Nankin has made announcements in my classes three times because she likes speaking in front of big lecture halls.
Chances for Change
I have talked to people who are confident Student Action will win again this year. They might be right. If Igor’s campaign last year could not topple SA’s undistinguished external affairs candidate and the slate backing him then who can? The other anomaly last year was the collapse of CalSERVE. They ran no executive candidates and fewer senate candidates then the previous year.
There is a lot of anti-SA sentiment. However, I know people who are burned out. They have worked for years to make the ASUC more accountable and better for students. They have campaigned for candidates and issues they knew were right. They also lost. Students picked flash and party name over personal dedication and experience. Good people I know are giving up, with their hopes shattered by an uninformed student body.
Go out and campaign for your candidate or cause. When the votes are counted and you are only a few short of victory, you will think of every flier you could have put up or every person you were not more forceful about talking to.
It’s how will the party “fare.”
Will someone fix this glaring error and learn grammar.
Thanks!
Comment by Anonymous — 3/14/2007 @ 8:17 am
Thanks for the comment. If only people paid as much attention to the truth as you do to grammar.
Comment by Chris Page — 3/14/2007 @ 8:56 am
Student Action created the Greek fund around 6 years ago but I can assure you that it was through student action senators. About the summer, keep in mind it was partly student action’s fault but also the fault of the judicial council who did not rule according to their laws. The debacle should be blamed on both for their lack of communication and desire to assert their own power.
Comment by Insider — 3/14/2007 @ 10:04 am
Well, look, you could play the game and ask whether a failure to properly interpret subtleties in the Constitution is on the same level as outright lying to the ASUC, but we don’t have to, since Student Action is up for election, while the Judicial Council is not. Also, it’s not like the Judicial Council was appointed without Student Action’s involvement.
Comment by Beetle — 3/14/2007 @ 1:51 pm
I was around in the early days of the Greek Philanthropy Fund. It was created by senators from Unite Greek (Student Action’s Greek arm) and Student Action. More importantly, Student Action has helped to protect funding to the Greek Philanthropy fund each and every year since.
Most notably, the year that CalSERVE swept the executive offices and the following year (when CalSERVE still had a sizeable number of senators), there were constant attempts to eliminate the fund, significantly decrease its funding, or change the rules give its funding to CalSERVE’s “communities.” Student Action was there every time to protect the Greek Philanthropy Fund and ensure that the money went to Greek letter fraternal organizations sponsoring legitimate philanthropy events that all students on campus could participate in. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, have been raised for charity from the events made possible by this fund. Also notable is that it is the only source of ASUC funding for Greek organizations.
Comment by California Grown — 3/15/2007 @ 6:53 am
so candidate filing ended today. what are the slates?
Comment by Anonymous — 3/16/2007 @ 7:05 pm
When the candidate list is officially released I will put it online.
Comment by Chris Page — 3/18/2007 @ 12:29 pm