It's important!

The Daily Cal continues to push the view that this story is huge, though I would argue their editorial hardly makes a strong case.

Still worse, in a "heinous" move, the senators pressured the ASUC attorney general multiple times to help set an earlier election date.

Heinous is in quotes, which means someone said it, and is being quoted. A little help?

Winston insists that she sent the e-mails from her personal account, as did Shah. In terms of the bylaws, this technicality may give them a free pass from punishment. But in the real world of right and wrong, this technicality means nothing.

Really? Nothing? They weren't using ASUC authority, and had opinions. If they weren't the types of folks who had opinions about things going on on campus, they wouldn't have ran for Senate in the first place. Elected officials have never been shy about expressing their opinions or attempting to organize action, nor should they be.

The officials' disingenuous manner exacerbates the extent of their wrongdoing; they put on a public facade of neutrality, yet were coordinating the recall behind closed doors. We hope the Judicial Council reprimands them, but regardless, students should hold them accountable when election time comes around.

I suppose you could hope that the Judicial Council reprimands them, but since they did nothing illegal, I dunno what one could possibly hope for.

posted by Beetle Aurora Drake 3/06/2009 02:32:00 AM #
Comments (2)

. . .

Comments:

I fully agree with you about the emails! How could anyone, elected or otherwise, be expected to not express an opinion on an election (especially folks present during such a contested event!) Though the issue is more widespread than this.

Looking forward to elections, we should change the bylaws to allow organizations to endorse. There is little practical difference, (in terms of impacting voters) between the endorsement of "John Doe- President of Cal Students for endorsements, and allowing "CSFE" to make an endorsement as an organization.

However, in terms of process, orgs would be required to vote on endorsements, and they would be after debate and consideration of the members, not just the decision of a candidates friend, roomate, or an executive board.

# posted by  Anonymous : 12:16 PM, March 09, 2009

 

I strongly, strongly disagree with you about organization endorsements. If an organization is ASUC-Sponsored, it's using ASUC authority for its existence, which in turn means it uses ASUC authority to build its membership. As such, allowing organizations to use their authority to issue endorsements is no different from the ASUC itself using its authority to issue endorsements for its own election, which turns the idea of democracy on its head.

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 12:45 PM, March 09, 2009

 

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