I apologize for commenting on every post. I'm really bored and my girlfriend is in Ohio for a week.
So now I'll take this minute to remark on something from the Daily Cal's endorsement stuff that's been bugging me all week:
The Daily Cal's discussion of why not to endorse the Student Life and Squelch Life Fees boiled down to "the senate should decide this stuff, it shouldn't be put to the student body as referenda." But it was the senate that put those two referenda, and in fact all the amendments and referenda on the ballot.
So I guess we should trust the senate to handle things except when the senate tells us to vote on something? I mean what the hell does that mean? Don't vote for this because it means saying you don't think the senate should be able to make its own decisions but damn the stupid, dumb senate for voting for this. I'd understand the argument if these referenda had been put on by signatures, but that's not what happened.
Just saying there were a lot of reasons they could've used to say "We don't think you should vote for these," but the fact that they chose the only one with a bizarre logical paradox in the middle of it seems like classic daily cal to me.
I don't think it's a logical paradox, the point just isn't worded that well.
The *present* Senate put the referenda on the ballot, but the Senate as an institution includes future Senates.
Future Senates will experience some inflexibility with how to allocate student fees if these referenda pass. And so the Senate as an institution will experience inflexibility.
I think the phrase I'm thinking of most is this one: "But whether the needs of ASUC SUPERB, Cal Band and the other groups covered in this referendum are sufficiently unique to merit special protection is hardly intuitive. That question must be settled by debate in the senate, not implicitly embedded in a referendum."
I think any way you read this it basically says: The senate should debate this stuff, but it then ignores that the senate did in fact debate this stuff and did then place this stuff on the ballot. I mean, I was there. They talked about whether the groups were deserving and not everyone agreed but the senate's consensus was to put it to the voters to decide.
I'm not even saying this is the way things should be done; I'm just saying that the Daily Cal chose an argument that basically makes the reader think that these referenda were somehow put on the ballot against the senate's will or that the senate didn't already debate this stuff.
So if we assume that this means they really think this year's senate screwed up, then they should say that. But they didn't because they knew it conflicted with the other half of their argument: don't pass these referenda because they're basically saying you don't trust the senate.
That's the conflict I'm talking about. They're telling you not to vote for these because we should trust in the senate to make these decisions, but then their entire argument is about how badly the senate screwed up and how this shouldn't be there.
It's also worth noting that when they say the senate should debate whether these groups are unique or special enough to deserve guaranteed funds, not only has that already happened, but the only real possible outcome to that debate besides doing nothing did happen. I mean, the senate couldn't have debated that these groups deserve special funds and then just magically declared that those funds exist. They'd have to put referenda before the students to create those fees or to change the constitution so that those funds couldn't be touched.
What I'm saying is the Daily Cal says they want this debated before the senate, but the senate already did that. What they really mean is they don't like the way the debate turned out, and that's what they should say. They shouldn't claim there's some other option out there or that the senate didn't discuss or consider these arguments.
Just to elaborate my point one small step further: I actually spent fifteen solid minutes arguing politely with Ilana Nankin in the senate chambers about whether the Squelch was as deserving a student group as Superb for guaranteed funding. She disagreed and we talked about it (quite nicely and intelligently) for a long while. So this debate not only did happen, I took part in it. And the Daily Cal, as they always do when they're ignorant of basic facts, just assumed it never did and that referenda magically appear on the ballot.
Ah okay, now I'm getting what you mean. Good points, Simon, I think your argument is right on about the editorials.
The only weak defense of the Daily Cal that I can offer is that they say they want the question "settled" in the Senate. This goes beyond discussion and debate. They could want a senator to be completely confident in and supportive of a fee proposed by referendum before he votes to pass it on to voters, which I think from reading minutes is a higher standard than at least some senators have. It seems to me from reading minutes discussing referenda that there is at least a *little* sentiment of "let the voters decide if you're not 100% sure."
