In the past month, everything in the ASUC has been focused on elections. The senators have been neglecting their duties as elected officials to work on campaigning instead. So many senators were away from the meetings that basic business could not be conducted in a timely fashion. Students on Sproul have been accosted by people with huge signs and enough flyers to have destroyed a forest the size of Rhode Island.
The hot potato
As an analogy, if the elections were a hot potato, the ASUC Senate basically cooked the potato half an hour longer than normal (the late selection of an election chair) and then threw it into finally chosen ASUC Elections Council chair Jessica Wren’s lap while demanding she magically cut it up and garnish it with sour cream. Luckily, ASUC Elections Council consultant Leslieann Cachola appeared with supplies. Then the senate moved the dinner across the street (changed the date) and demanded she build a window in the side of the house so the neighbors could get their share (online voting). All in record time (months less than normal) with no cooking experience (no students with election experience were available).
Results when?
Now the question is, When will we know the results of the election? Last year was the fastest in recent memory, with the results being released in mid-May. However, they have been known to drag on into June. The delay is caused by lawsuits that candidates or their agents file to try to disqualify their opponents for breaking election rules. We will be lucky to get results before finals are over.
Out with the old
Most of the old trees that were in Dwinelle Courtyard were abruptly pulled out and new ones planted around spring break. SQUELCH! Senator Ben Narodick is upset that the university acted unilaterally without asking for student input, especially since the old trees posed no discernable problem.
The Senate Lecture Series
The senate began a program in which professors come to senate meetings to lecture for half an hour about various topics. This has included Professor Richard A. Muller, who spoke about nuclear weapons and their development (which I am proud to say Berkeley is deeply involved in); Professor Alexei V. Filippenko on the topic of other universes; and Professor Henry E. Brady, speaking about the value of investing in higher education.
While these are educational, they make the senate meetings unnecessarily longer than they already are. If all of the senators stayed in their seats and did not run off to make photocopies or ditch senate meetings mysteriously, sometimes for an hour or more, they could get all their work done and go home early.
Some advice
I hope that next year’s officials will remember that the ASUC is not a political mouthpiece. Nor is it an arena for party games between CalSERVE and Student Action. I hate some of what the first one stands for (affirmative action, gender-neutral bathrooms, and a “womyn’s” right to choose) and what the second one has done (screwing around with election dates and getting mad when conservative students — for whom they don’t actually do anything — don’t support them). I despise them both for the countless times they have put their own party politics above the good of students.
There is one truth that is so often forgotten: The ASUC exists to serve students.
Don’t make enemies. I encountered two important senators before any of us came to Cal. I worked with Chris Abad in our high school production of Oklahoma and Igor Tregub at a Junior Statesmen of America conference. You will not see the last of people you met here.
I wish I could leave the absurdity of the ASUC in the hope that next year’s officials will learn from the mistakes of this year’s. However, if this past year was any indication, the year to come will be a disheartening one.
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