By now it is conventional wisdom that it is difficult to recruit students to run or apply for spots in the ASUO. One possible solution to this and other enduring problems in student government could be the formation of lasting political parties, or so thinks former president Sam Dotters-Katz.
“Two of the biggest problems with the ASUO politically are a lack of accountability and institutional memory,” Dotters-Katz said. The lack of accountability comes when students are elected as part of a slate of candidates that claim to have similar principles, but fail to adhere to those principles once in office.
Terry Michael, a former press secretary for the Democratic National Committee who now directs an internship program in political journalism, lectures on the value of political parties. “Rather than being faced with a laundry list of unknown names on a ballot, a voter needs a rational way to determine whether a candidate sees the world the way she or he does,” Michael said.
The best way to do that now is to vote for a slate, which is also why slates are the best way for candidates to get elected. But because few student senators or committee members ever have to face reelection, voters are left without any practical way to hold them accountable to promises made or implied while campaigning as part of a slate. The slates often disappear from year to year, though loose factions remain.
“We have people that come together for the purpose of getting elected and somewhat disingenuously claiming that they share all the same values. And clearly we have seen that’s not the case because the slates never stay together; they never vote as a bloc after elections,” Dotters-Katz said.
A party infrastructure could help force its elected members to tow the line by offering incentives, Dotters-Katz said, such as committee chairmanships or a chance to run for the executive. That should sound counterintuitive coming from the guy who ran against dreaded ASUO insiders, but Dotters-Katz explained the system could be run on merit, not seniority.
“If people had to prove themselves both as hard workers and as honest brokers, I don’t see how the electorate loses. The fact of the matter is the sophistication of the ASUO polity will occur based on what best helps candidates get elected. If you can create institutions that help people get elected but then help keep them accountable (and) serve as institutional memory from year to year” both issues could be solved, he said.
Merit could drive the system if the primary focus of parties was to win elections. “There’s no guarantee that an insider will be the presidential candidate,” Dotters-Katz said. “The party will pick the best candidate to win.”
He and his vice president Johnny Delashaw were “clearly everyday students,” he said, but “joined with those who had that institutional memory, basically a political faction.” Had that faction selected a candidate based on seniority, he said it would have been former Senate President Athan Papailiou. But Dotters-Katz and Delashaw were viewed as the most viable option, he said.
A party system is not likely to happen any time soon because of the immense work and dedication to a core set of beliefs that would be required to start one, Dotters-Katz said. But as certain students begin contemplating their campaigns to be the next executive, and slates begin to form in the next couple of months, leaders ought to give serious consideration to who runs for office and how to hold them accountable.
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