“Why Can’t We Nominate Someone Who Likes Us?”
The above question was asked by several Student Action senators wondering to themselves why they had to appoint a very depressed looking Jessica Wren to the Elections Council Chair last night.
EDIT: There was a picture of Jessica Wren here looking like she was ready to go postal on the ASUC Senate, but the Daily Cal has decided that we can no longer use their pictures on this blog without a photo release that I assume we would need to pay for. Explanation will be posted shortly.
Many senators were complaining to the Daily Cal that Jessica, well, just doesn’t like them. In fact, this is probably true. But this is a problem that has been growing for some time in the ASUC: finding people to fill appointed positions within the organization that don’t hate Student Action. Generally speaking, these people are filtered out by the following criteria:
1) Lack of motivation. Hey, is that bowl cashed?
2) Jaded at the organization. Mostly speaking, individuals on this campus don’t know what the ASUC stands for (ask 10 random freshmen) or work with organizations who think that the Association is a general bureaucratic mess that’s good for group funding every April. Why would they want to run elections? Then, the dominant party in the Senate tries to steal student fees and grills every nominee on their friends and Facebook buddies. It’s not a flattering process, and it doesn’t encourage applicants.
3) Lack of experience. Honestly, elections here are a $50,000 a year enterprise. I’m not qualified to run them, and I’ve been here for four years.
4) Lack of compensation. Wren will work approximately 300 hours up until this election (20 hours a week/15 weeks) for a $1500 stipend. For those of you Mass Comm majors, that’s $5.00/hour, if you keep all of your stipend.
So, for Student Action, in the stead of having a Elections Council Chair who is impartial, they are going to get one who probably hates their guts. Don’t worry, she’s just representative of the rest of the students on this campus.
What this really means is that the Senate should probably be expanded to 25 members, with those “highly motivated” individuals taking positions like Attorney General and Elections Council Chair while having restricted voting rights. This is a flawed solution, but I think it works better than the current system.
And, to all our loyal readers, remember: when looking for ASUC Elections gossip, come to CalStuff! April fun is just around the corner!
UPDATE: Jessica Wren, upon posting that she hates my last-year counterpart of myself, also claimed that the Daily Cal’s picture of her is not accurately portraying her beauty. Thoughts?
Poor guy. Looks like she’s going to bite his tongue off.
