Subterfuge May Serve to Destroy the ASUC

On July 15th, the Judicial Council is expected to deny Student Action's latest election appeal, upholding their disqualification from all ASUC executive offices. If that happens, Student Action will hold the Associated Students of the University of California hostage with a federal lawsuit. The University will face thousands of dollars in legal costs, and by the time this whole mess is over, there may no longer be a student government. How did this happen?

Student Action easily dominated the recent ASUC elections. Almost every candidate they ran won, and in all but a few key races, their margins were decisive. Then, for reasons known only to them, they threw it all away.

Faced with minor (though blatant) campaign violations, they committed obvious and needless perjury in front of the ASUC Judicial Council. They lied about the most basic facts you can imagine. They claimed they didn't know how chalk worked. That's right, chalk. That stuff in every room in every building on campus. Then at a later hearing, they lied about lying. Maybe they were emboldened because they had no other serious opponents, or maybe they just thought lying would be easier, but for whatever reason, the party did everything possible to circumvent the system. Faced with such a bizarre conspiracy of perjury and feigned-idiocy, the Judicial Council, which is charged with upholding the rules, was forced to disqualify them.

Then on June 27th, former ASUC President Manny Buenrostro issued Executive Order No. 7, attempting to arbitrarily declare victory for all of his fellow Student Action candidates. There were several problems with this. For one, he wasn't president anymore. Sidestepping that however, it was a blatant and obvious coup d'etat. The order rambled through tissue-thin logic that would make even the most cynical of third-world dictators blush. At one point it claimed that 4 out of 7 justices was a "small minority." The order did everything but dissolve the entire government and declare Manny god. It was amazingly, stupendously, fantastically illegal. Somewhere a defense attorney wept with joy while reading it.

Unfortunately Manny probably went deaf after the explosive barrage of laughter his order prompted from both the ASUC Auxiliary (read: the people who actually write the checks) and his own lawyers. He's now declared that, "oh wait, forget that last order, but now all the Student Action candidates are just temporarily in office for the summer, to, you know, keep the offices in Eshleman warm."

Student Action says that if they don't get their way, they'll not only sue the University in federal court, but also the individual members of the Judicial Council. Should that occur, the University will be more than justified should they choose to end the ruse of ASUC autonomy and dissolve the entire organization. Student Action has proven that the ASUC is nothing more than overgrown children playing with daddy's money.

Time and time again the University has bailed out the organization when its own petty squabbling has led to budget shortfalls and other minor disasters. This executive order is a new low and the University will have to step in, and at the very least, choose sides. But once they've done that, they'll have to ask themselves, "Is a system this corrupt, this despised, this pathetic, this big of a legal liability, really worth it?"

In its coverage of this event last week, the Daily Cal portrayed all this drama as nothing more than routine bickering and disagreement, passively suggesting there was no real conflict at all. But as disappointing as the ASUC has been, this is not just business as usual. Both the Daily Cal and Student Action missed the point.

Student Action has shown absolute contempt for the democratic process and has gone too far, even by the reduced standards of inept student government. They claim that the party with the most votes should win-and they're right-but what about the party that threatens fellow students with lawsuits? What about the party that tries to cheat and lie its way through even a simple disciplinary hearing? If they act this way when faced with a meaningless trial about improper chalking, how are they going to act if they get into office? There's an old phrase: It's the cover up, not the crime that gets you in trouble.

No one should hate Student Action. They're filled with people who are, somehow, miraculously, actually passionate about student government. Many people disagree with the way they do things, but there's no denying that they work very hard to achieve their campaign promises and that they're committed to the student body. But for whatever reason, they made some very stupid and very strange decisions, and they'll have to live with them. Now they'll have to decide if they want to win so badly that they'd rather destroy the ASUC than accept the consequences of their own actions.

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