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1. I still don’t think I’ve seen a valid argument on this blog against the Heuristic Squelch Fee Referendum, other than the fact that it’s a fee. For $1.50 a semester, you’d think the Cal Patriot people would sack up for free speech.

   Comment by Ben — 4/11/2007 @ 6:40 pm

2. Pay for your own free speech. Not that I don’t love the Squelch, but if you guys get special dibs, that means the Socialist Worker will want to get them as well, or worse, the Smart Ass.

   Comment by Anonymous — 4/11/2007 @ 7:15 pm

3. Quick Comment against the Squelch fee:
   It is special treatment for a specific student group. We have a general budget to fund student groups and publications. The budgeting process exists so all groups have a fair chance at funding. If there is not enough money for student groups, cut the tens of thousands of dollars that are spent on the ASUC executive offices. After waste like that is weeded out of the budget, if more money is needed ask for a general fee increase that is open to all student groups.

   Comment by Christopher Page — 4/11/2007 @ 8:21 pm

4. Christopher, that is a pretty bad argument against the increase. Weaker than not voting for the fee increase simply because it is a fee increase, to say the least. You point out that there is a great deal of waste in the ASUC. There is not much to say to that except “duh.” Redirecting that money to the student groups in need of funding is a nice idea, and platform of every SQUELCH! candidate, but the likelihood of that happening is slim at best.

   The general fee increase portion of the argument is at least a little bit better, but you still run in to the same problems with group funding being disproportionate to the actual needs of the group. Who you know in the Senate matters a lot more.

   The only practical reason for voting against the Heuristic Squelch referendum then is if you don’t feel it will be worth the $1.50/year (or semester, I forget). There is still the moral issue of imposing fees on others who may feel the $1.50/year is not worth it, even if it is to you as the voter. Though I haven’t noticed much in the way of libertarian leanings around here since patr left, so I am not sure I would buy it from any of the current Patriot bloggers even if you tried.

   Comment by James McBride — 4/11/2007 @ 9:11 pm

5. J McBride:

   No, Chris’s argument was a good one. Considering your “the status quo won’t change” approach to ASUC waste and group funding, there might as well be a proposed increase for EVERY group that feels entitled to more money. Taking away more money from students and neglecting the real problem makes matters worse.

   Comment by Bojangles — 4/11/2007 @ 11:34 pm

6. Lets be fair. The Squelch fee is pretty bad cause it’s an additional fee.

   But at the same time the Greeks want to steal even more money through the Greek Life Amendment.

   I think we are on a whole new level now.

   Comment by Ghost of Clark Kerr — 4/12/2007 @ 12:40 am

7. To reiterate, the question becomes:

   Students have an opportunity to preserve and expand on a 110-year old tradition on this campus. Doing so will give students and student groups on this campus twice the fiancial value that they invest annually. Again, dozens of student groups, as well as more then half the students on this campus, work with the publication.

   This comes at a cost of $1.50 per semester ($.50 per issue). Additionally, you actually will have to buy into the baseless arguments that the Senate will allow more referenda to be on the ballot after this year (these are the first of this type since 2001) and that the student body would actually be stupid enough to pass a referendum for the Socialist Worker.

   In short, it’s cheap and easy for a group that has private endowments to say that it is important for other groups to respect the political processes that they admit are corrupt and despicable.

   Comment by Ben — 4/12/2007 @ 11:52 am

8. The thing is, the student body IS stupid enough to pass or by their apathy allow passage of ANY fee increase that gets to the ballot.

   Comment by Ghost of Clark Kerr — 4/12/2007 @ 11:59 am

9. Here’s what I’d say about the Squelch Fee.
   I totally understand people opposing it. And I understand the basic argument that “It’s a fee. And it’s special treatment.”

   I can’t speak on behalf of the Squelch or any other publications, but I can talk about my experience running this stuff and what it’s taught me.

   The funding levels for publications right now are really, truly terrible. I’ve heard a few arguments from people that publications are fine because they’re still producing issues (only in the ASUC could “not going completely bankrupt” be considered “fine”), but producing a thousand issues in a semester for a campus of 33,000 is completely inadequate. Publications are disappearing and dying, and despite aggressive attempts by publications like the Squelch and others to bring their cause to the senate, pubs always seem to be the first on the chopping block because their printing expenses make easy targets. Students like reading student publications, and what’s more, they provide a real benefit to the campus.

   Almost every elite university in this country has a signature publication. Harvard, Stanford, Penn, Brown, Yale, etc… all have humor magazines and other publications that are as old as the universities themselves. They’re part of what attract people to those schools. They’re one of the many seemingly trivial things that set a great university from a middling one.

   Writers of a lot of movies and tv shows have come straight from these publications, and they form alumni networks back to their old school.

   I know there’s a lot of waste going on in other places, but there are very few groups on campus who truly serve the campus at large, and publications are one of those groups. I’m not trying to bad mouth other groups; I’m just saying that unlike a lot of groups, publications by their very nature are meant to serve the entire campus. They’re meant to reach and entertain everyone.

   This 1.50 fee will save the Squelch in particular as the university’s largest student funded and run magazine, and it’ll also produce much needed funds for basic infrastructure improvements needed by all the publications.

   I know a lot of people want to say “Can’t you just be more efficient?” but the frank answer is no. If you’re already selling thousands of dollars in advertising an issue and already printing on low quality paper most publications at other university’s wouldn’t wipe their ass with, there’s nothing that’s going to magically make up for funding cuts and increased printer costs.

   So anyway, I respect all the arguments against the fee; I’m just saying I think for that small 1.50 investment, the potential benefit to the campus is going to far outweigh the costs, and without the fee, I see no reason why student publications won’t continue to disappear and publish fewer and fewer issues until eventually no one even remembers they’re there.

   Comment by Simon — 4/12/2007 @ 3:03 pm

10. Half the argument is just based upon the slippery slope fallacy. If one group gets it, others will line up next year, and the year after. However, most groups have no where near the visibility on campus necessary to get a referendum passed in their favor, so I don’t buy that as a real danger.

    And, as Ben pointed out, it is easy for groups such as the Patriot and Daily Cal to say no, considering they don’t have to deal with it. Eliminating waste and corruption in government is a laudable goal, but at the same time laughable.

    Comment by James McBride — 4/12/2007 @ 11:11 pm

11. 33,000 x 1.50 = Kiss My Ass

    If people really care, they will donate to it. Duh. If everyone that cared chipped in as much money as it would cost them for their Italian Soda or whatever they get from Cafe Strada every damn day, then let it die. Use the grass roots, dude. The referendum is just lazy.

    Comment by Vote No — 4/12/2007 @ 11:35 pm

12. I understand I’m not going to convince a lot of people on the Patriot blog, but I’m still gonna make some arguments.

    Publications with set yearly expenses can’t survive off donations in the long term. In a college environment, only a few thousand people are going to be truly new every year, meaning you have to tap the same well over and over again with what would amount to much more time spent bothering people to donate than spent actually entertaining them. What I mean is that a group of 10 or 20 students can devote their time and resources to making magazines and newspapers that will entertain 20,000 students, but those same 10 or 20 students would have a hell of a time running a non-stop donation campaign. CalPIRG is one of the few groups that can do it because that’s essentially all they spend their time doing. The nature of Sproul also makes selling issues very, very difficult.

    If I thought the ASUC senate were going to fund publications fairly (that is, in my opinion they should be funded proportionate to their benefit to the campus and the number of people who enjoy them, which is strong portion of the campus community), I wouldn’t support this referendum, but year after year it’s become clear that the ASUC is incapable of providing students with the actual student services they want and clamor for.

    As a side note, the 1.50 number is essentially the smallest possible referendum that could be placed on the ballot. The ASUC has a lot of internal bullshit that made it frankly impossible to make this fee exactly right, so it was decided to make it as small as they said was possible and to make sure there was no hidden language about inflation or anything else that would let the fee increase in the future.

    It’s also the only fee on the ballot that forbids the ASUC from providing any more funding to the beneficiary.

    I understand there’s a lot of people who are just never going to support a fee increase and normally I’d be one of them, but in this case I really think it’s the only option to keep this school from losing publications and I think if you spend the time looking at a number of the things built into this referendum (the built-in advertising, the permanently freed up senate funds, the massive increase in quality and availability of student publications through more issues and more infrastructure), it’s really well worth the 1.50.

    Comment by Simon — 4/13/2007 @ 1:21 am

13. Ghost of Clark Kerr, that’s an excellent point about the Greek Life Amendment. It’s scary how that is just going to probably get approved by voters with hardly any debate about it whatsoever, but probably have a significant impact on the budget.

    Comment by Jim Fung — 4/13/2007 @ 2:57 am

14. Mm, I don’t think you have to worry so much about the Greek amendment. Value-based/social/Panhell & IFC/whatever you wanna call them fraternities and sororities are pretty committed to dues-based financial support. And, more importantly, so are our nationals with the exception of accepting donations for our philanthropies (thus the GPF).

    I’m fairly certain that this amendment is intended to continue to allow multicultural and culturally-based fraternities and sororities to receive SISG status (which they completely deserve). Basically, its preventing SA from doing its thing where they discourage unity in the Greek Community by screwing over the chapters in it who don’t vote for them. The Daily Cal article is here:
    http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=21393

    The amendment should just maintain the status quo.

    Comment by Punch My Ballot — 4/13/2007 @ 11:53 am

15. Thanks for that information, Lauren. This is the kind of information that should be out there but instead there is no debate on this amendment that I have seen, no one talks about the amendment, and there were not even any arguments in the Voter Guide pro or con.

    Comment by Jim Fung — 4/13/2007 @ 1:43 pm

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