Tuesday, December 09, 2008
El Recall: Self-serving idiocy
Andrew Rittenburg wins the award for most self-servingly idiotic op-ed. It starts with a bang:
To what ends will we allow the ASUC to pick and choose what parts of their constitution they adhere to? Normally, you would expect some examples of the ASUC refusing to adhere to some part of the Constitution. Instead, you get this:
With the 1,000 signatures necessary to obtain a recall vote on independent ASUC Senator John Moghtader, ASUC Attorney General Michael Sinanian discovered a technicality that allowed the senate to push the discussion of the recall to the next senate meeting, thus setting the election to January. My interactions with Sinanian have suggested to me that he is utterly incompetent and plays it fast and loose with the truth, and I don't know what he said in that Senate meeting. What I do know, though, is that the requirement for the election to be set at the next meeting comes directly from the Constitution:
Any Senator may be subject to recall by presentation to the Senate of a petition signed by at least one thousand (1,000) students represented by that Senator and containing a specific statement of the reasons for the proposed removal.
At the next regular meeting of the Senate, the date(s) of the recall election shall be set in accordance with Article VII. At that meeting, the Senator shall be allowed to speak in his/her own defense. (emphasis mine) The only people asking for picking and choosing which parts of the Constitution to follow seem to be the proponents of the recall.
We as a student body cannot allow the ASUC to protect John Moghtader behind trivialities and loopholes. In putting off the recall election until next year, the senate is postponing what is a pressing issue. The ASUC should be worshipping the ground the time monsters walk on for the recall election being put off until next year. They are currently in the position of assembling a recall election, and as far as I know, they have no Elections Council, aside from the Chair and Attorney General. Did they really want the tiny fragment of the Elections Council to conjure an election out of their ass in a week or two right before/during finals?
The student body chooses its senators, not the UCPD. We vote for our representatives, and we have voted to remove one of them from power. I'll have more to say about what is conceptually wrong with the recall process later, but, as Rittenburg was just complaining about, the election is next year. The student body hasn't voted to remove anyone.
Michael Sinanian claims that the recall election could cost as much as $50,000. If this is true, and the ASUC performs its duty in holding a recall election, then John Moghtader needs to choose whether his seat on the senate is worth that cost to the student body. The same student body that has already accrued over 1,000 signatures calling for his removal from the senate. Well, if the student body wanted it, I don't see the problem with them carrying the cost. All of those signers needed to choose whether removing him from the Senate was worth that cost to the student body. But, of course, the recall petition and its publicity arm made no real mention of the fact that students were signing a form that could cost the ASUC $50,000. Are they really going to try to avoid taking any blame themselves for this cost?
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