More of the same from the SGA
The Johns Hopkins News-Letter · September 17, 2008
Last year, Student Council wrote a new constitution and renamed itself the Student Government Association (SGA) with the promise of a new beginning without the bureaucratic infighting and corruption that had come to define the Council. They said they were fed up with the useless bureaucracy of the old system that caused them to spin their wheels whenever they wanted to get something done. Student government was to become something relevant - or so they promised.
But here we are, at the start of a new year, seeing the same problems we have always seen. Effectively, the SGA did not exist until Tuesday night's meeting, as the new constitution's bylaws had yet passed. Without bylaws, there were no committees, which are the structural centerpiece that gives the SGA their nominal authority and influence. It was not until this past Tuesday night, after passing their bylaws, that they finally formed the committees.
According to the Constitution, freshmen class elections would not occur for another five weeks. The SGA at least recognizes that this is unacceptable as it would result in an only partially functioning student government for the first two months of this year.
Consequently, the SGA has established an ad-hoc committee to run the election. The ad-hoc committee was established instead of the regular committee because the new Constitution provides for such a loop-hole. For a body that is merely months old, the SGA already has many of its faithful adherents characteristically unwilling to forgo any of its sacred rules for the sake of real progress.
The only problem is that this committee will be composed of many of last year's election committee members who have already proved their ineptitude.
The Committee for Student Elections (CSE) is broken. In last year's executive elections, every single candidate was disqualified for breaking rules, from failing to turn in their campaign finance report on time to campaigning during the election period. After a painful appeals process, the disqualifications were upheld and CSE ran a second election. That time around, no one was disqualified. But because of the time delay, the losers couldn't drop down to run in class elections like they should be able to do. The SGA's decision to have some of the same people run this year's freshmen election is, at the very least, perplexing.
There are those, however, on the SGA who recognize that there are fundamental problems with the election system on campus. But when the new system was presented to the SGA on Tuesday, a majority of members shot down the only genuinely significant change from last year, which would be to allow candidates to campaign during the election period.
The rule that disallows campaigning during the election period extends to simple statements like "vote for me," "will you please vote for me" and "I would really appreciate it if you would consider voting for me."
At least two candidates were disqualified for these harmless statements during last year's election. Campaigning throughout the duration of an election is beneficial for the system as a whole. On such an apathetic campus, election-day campaigning will ideally raise awareness - and therefore participation.
It is hard to not be cynical at some Member's condemnations of the ensuing bureaucracy. The SGA seems to be on the path towards a repeat of last year's obsession with internal "reform." So far, the new SGA sure looks a lot like the old Student Council.