Students, learn about your ASG candidates now
Notes from Underground
Adam Roberts
Issue date: 2/23/09 Section: Opinion
This year's ASG presidential election will pit Mattie Bookhout against Jacob Holloway, according to various voices around campus.
Because of some unresolved issues with the horrendously written ASG Election Code, neither candidate will publicly admit he or she is running. Bookhout has resigned from the Elections Committee, and Holloway continues to go to the ASG senate meetings, even though he resigned last semester. And all of my extremely reliable sources are using words like "definitely" and "for sure" when I ask if the two are running this year.
All of these sources, however, have asked to remain anonymous. So, apparently, most people in the ASG know that Bookhout and Holloway are running, and all of their friends know that Bookhout and Holloway are running, but it's still "a secret." The only people not allowed to know are members of the voting public.
It's clear that students need more time to learn about the candidates and cast an informed ballot. Springing the candidates on us as a surprise a week before voting starts isn't fair to students because it restricts the amount of information they can gather.
I don't think I'm going to vote in this week's vacancy election because none of the candidates I've been able to find on Facebook have a platform written out, and I have too much homework between now and Wednesday afternoon to sit down and interview each of them.
Candidates for the Fulbright seat, if you're reading this, please e-mail me a description of bills and resolutions that you plan to introduce. A meaningless slogan like Eric Fay and Steven Mckee's "Making a Fuller Brighter Future for Fulbright College" is not going to win my vote. In fact, it's pretty insulting that they think it would. Will Watson seems to have some concrete ideas. It'd be nice if he campaigned on them.
Last semester's vacancy election wasn't any better. There were six candidates running in Fulbright College, and exactly zero of them were running on any sort of platform or proposal. I sent a message to each of them asking what their positions were on campus issues, and only one candidate responded.
The eventual winner was Thomas Pevehouse. His Facebook group description read, in its entirety, "Vote Tommy Pevehouse for Fulbright vacancy election!"
No, I'm not joking.
Fortunately, executive elections tend to be better. Last year, the three-way race generated a lot of media coverage, and the competition challenged the candidates to develop coherent platforms and address different student concerns. I don't know for sure, but I imagine that at least a few students voted on the issues instead of randomly choosing whoever sent their Facebook group invitations out first or gave away the most delicious hot dogs.
I'm never going to turn down a free hot dog, but perhaps it would be more constructive and less patronizing if this year the candidates spent their money on promoting their ideas and policy positions.
Because the ASG presidential candidates don't feel it's safe to admit that they are, indeed, candidates, I don't know for sure what sort of ASG presidents they hope to be. But I can make some educated guesses.
Bookhout served as the 2007-08 ASG secretary. She co-authored a couple of progressive election-related resolutions, including Resolution 27, which was vetoed by Chancellor G. David Gearhart. She's spent the past year as an ASG senator for the College of Engineering, and she knows the details of how the ASG works.
My assumption is that Bookhout would make moderate, sensible reforms of internal ASG policies and would be able to respectfully challenge administrators. She never wrote back to me when I campaigned in favor of a tobacco policy reform last fall, so I don't know what her position is on that issue.
Holloway will almost certainly run on a platform of radical student government reform. He came in third place in last year's executive election, and last fall, he resigned from his ASG senate seat, saying that it is not a legitimate body.
I was able to convince Holloway to talk to me on the record about a few issues, although he was always very careful to avoid admitting that he has any personal interest in the election. He believes that the student government is "a body that's still trying to find a purpose" and that the campaigns this spring "need to be about helping to find ASG's purpose."
Just what that purpose is will be left up to the voters. If we continue to elect people just because we know them or because they send us a Facebook invitation, the ASG will be irrelevant and the senate will go yet another month without passing a bill.
But if we make sure that we only vote for candidates with ideas that we actually know, the ASG's power will grow and the voice of the students will be heard.
Adam Roberts is a columnist for The Arkansas Traveler. His column appears every Monday.
Because of some unresolved issues with the horrendously written ASG Election Code, neither candidate will publicly admit he or she is running. Bookhout has resigned from the Elections Committee, and Holloway continues to go to the ASG senate meetings, even though he resigned last semester. And all of my extremely reliable sources are using words like "definitely" and "for sure" when I ask if the two are running this year.
All of these sources, however, have asked to remain anonymous. So, apparently, most people in the ASG know that Bookhout and Holloway are running, and all of their friends know that Bookhout and Holloway are running, but it's still "a secret." The only people not allowed to know are members of the voting public.
It's clear that students need more time to learn about the candidates and cast an informed ballot. Springing the candidates on us as a surprise a week before voting starts isn't fair to students because it restricts the amount of information they can gather.
I don't think I'm going to vote in this week's vacancy election because none of the candidates I've been able to find on Facebook have a platform written out, and I have too much homework between now and Wednesday afternoon to sit down and interview each of them.
Candidates for the Fulbright seat, if you're reading this, please e-mail me a description of bills and resolutions that you plan to introduce. A meaningless slogan like Eric Fay and Steven Mckee's "Making a Fuller Brighter Future for Fulbright College" is not going to win my vote. In fact, it's pretty insulting that they think it would. Will Watson seems to have some concrete ideas. It'd be nice if he campaigned on them.
Last semester's vacancy election wasn't any better. There were six candidates running in Fulbright College, and exactly zero of them were running on any sort of platform or proposal. I sent a message to each of them asking what their positions were on campus issues, and only one candidate responded.
The eventual winner was Thomas Pevehouse. His Facebook group description read, in its entirety, "Vote Tommy Pevehouse for Fulbright vacancy election!"
No, I'm not joking.
Fortunately, executive elections tend to be better. Last year, the three-way race generated a lot of media coverage, and the competition challenged the candidates to develop coherent platforms and address different student concerns. I don't know for sure, but I imagine that at least a few students voted on the issues instead of randomly choosing whoever sent their Facebook group invitations out first or gave away the most delicious hot dogs.
I'm never going to turn down a free hot dog, but perhaps it would be more constructive and less patronizing if this year the candidates spent their money on promoting their ideas and policy positions.
Because the ASG presidential candidates don't feel it's safe to admit that they are, indeed, candidates, I don't know for sure what sort of ASG presidents they hope to be. But I can make some educated guesses.
Bookhout served as the 2007-08 ASG secretary. She co-authored a couple of progressive election-related resolutions, including Resolution 27, which was vetoed by Chancellor G. David Gearhart. She's spent the past year as an ASG senator for the College of Engineering, and she knows the details of how the ASG works.
My assumption is that Bookhout would make moderate, sensible reforms of internal ASG policies and would be able to respectfully challenge administrators. She never wrote back to me when I campaigned in favor of a tobacco policy reform last fall, so I don't know what her position is on that issue.
Holloway will almost certainly run on a platform of radical student government reform. He came in third place in last year's executive election, and last fall, he resigned from his ASG senate seat, saying that it is not a legitimate body.
I was able to convince Holloway to talk to me on the record about a few issues, although he was always very careful to avoid admitting that he has any personal interest in the election. He believes that the student government is "a body that's still trying to find a purpose" and that the campaigns this spring "need to be about helping to find ASG's purpose."
Just what that purpose is will be left up to the voters. If we continue to elect people just because we know them or because they send us a Facebook invitation, the ASG will be irrelevant and the senate will go yet another month without passing a bill.
But if we make sure that we only vote for candidates with ideas that we actually know, the ASG's power will grow and the voice of the students will be heard.
Adam Roberts is a columnist for The Arkansas Traveler. His column appears every Monday.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
rtjones
Robbie Jones
posted 2/22/09 @ 11:52 PM CST
As someone that helped revise the elections code and served on the elections committee for two years, I'd be interested to hear why the code is "horrendously written. (Continued…)
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