In today’s paper the Emerald endorses Jared/Juliana for ASUO Executive. This is unsurprising, if only because of Commentary Editor Ailee Slater’s proximity to Ashley Rees. Rees is, of course, one of the main people behind the Jared/Juliana campaign/slate.
But proximity alone does not invalidate an opinion– faulty reasoning does. Shall we begin?

At the debate Mann clearly attempted to portray his ticket as political “outsiders,” using a strategy that proved successful for current President Adam Walsh and Vice President Kyla Coy. And like last year, the failed campaigns have joined perceived underdogs to help them defeat the “insiders,” as they paint Axelrod and Guzman.

The Emerald furthered this inside/outside debate last year. We supported Walsh and Coy because they offered fresh perspectives that outweighed their lack of experience with running government.

“Furthered” is a strange choice of words in this instance, as it implies that one of the reasons the Emerald endorsed Walsh/Coy was because of their outsider status. In reality (and a typical display of their editorial board’s spinelessness), the Emerald endorsed both Walsh/Coy and Rees/Anker-Lagos, despite viewing Walsh/Coy’s outsider status as a demerit. (I cannot find a seperate endorsement for the General elections, so please correct me if this is not the case.)
This also demonstrates one of the very basic differences between the Commentator and the ODE. The OC prefers fresh faces, dissenting views, and people who are as unattached as possible to student groups. The closer someone is to a particular student group, the greater the chance that they’ll represent the wishes of that special interest rather than the student body as a whole. The Emerald calls this “experience.” But at its best, it’s insidership. (At worst, it’s bare corruption.) With Axelrod being a Sophomore and consequently eligible for further ASUO “service” after his term as President, the problem is only magnified.

We agree with critics of student government that powerful student unions often manipulate the Executive and other branches of the ASUO. However, we believe Axelrod and Guzman are sufficiently pragmatic and will avoid this trap.

This is a particularly ironic statement. The pragmatic position for a President to take is to please the “powerful student unions” since they have more influence over ASUO politics than any other source. It isn’t a trap to do what student groups tell you to do– it’s smart politics.

Axelrod’s experience as chairman of the Programs Finance Committee, arguably the most important committee within the ASUO, is his ticket’s strongest asset. This year, the PFC finished less than its projected budget, thanks to Axelrod’s meticulous attention to viewpoint neutrality, fairness and Green Tape Notebook rules.

None of which have anything to do with the benchmark that was set. Axelrod did a good job leading the PFC this year, particularly when taking last year’s PFC into account.

We believe he will apply his sense of fiscal responsibility to the escalating incidental fee, which Mann has failed to address. In fact, Mann has implied that he favors increasing student leaders’ stipends, which already represent a disproportionate amount of the budget.

One of the few valid points in the Editorial. Mann’s mention of increasing some stipends is quite troubling. But I find it very hard to believe that any stipend model revision under a Jared/Juliana presidency would lead to a decrease in total stipends for groups such as the Women’s Center, MEChA, or the MCC.

Mann-Grace supporters also criticize Axelrod-Guzman’s emphasis on lobbying. We agree that results of lobbying can be hard to quantify, and budgets for lobbying organizations must be examined. But the Oregon University System is facing a financial crisis, and the Oregon Legislature is in session next year. Axelrod and Guzman have the wherewithal and resources to effectively ply that body for our student interests.

All the more reason to preemptively counter any tuition raises with a cut in the incidental fee.

Axelrod has strongly protested the proposed, detrimental changes to the Student Conduct Code. Although Mann-Grace has based its campaign on Westmoreland, Axelrod has proved he’s capable of advocating for students in this issue.

What in the hell does this paragraph even mean? How are Westmoreland and the SCC connected?

Although we disagree with Axelrod’s decision to introduce the controversial ballot measure regarding Iranian nuclear proliferation to the Senate, we applaud his willingness to defend his point and to represent student concerns. Campus issues should be government’s focus, but we cannot slight him for arguing his point.

You applaud Axelrod for defending his position of wasting the Senate’s time and our money on pointless debates? Am I reading this correctly?

Finally, Axelrod has promised a “zero tolerance policy” toward rule violators in his administration. He has experience enforcing rules as Student Senate ombudsmen, and we believe he will keep this commitment. Student government needs this accountability.

This is the part of the article I read and re-read about a dozen times. Let’s take the wayback machine to March 6:

A member of the Student Senate who plans to run for president in the upcoming student government elections has failed to fulfill his duties, grounds for termination if a student files a grievance, according to documents collected from student government leaders.

Senator Dallas Brown has not attended eight of 18 required committee meetings between four different committee bodies this term, according to attendance charts collected from senate committee leaders.

I wonder what student government leaders Wilbur is talking about? Who is it that’s supposed to be in charge of documenting absences? Let’s bring ‘er forward to April 3:

A Student senator who faces sanctions for missing too many meetings was not absent for as many as previously thought, and another senator should have been kicked off the student government body earlier because she didn’t file for the major that her seat required, according to a recent audit. The updated data found that Senator Dallas Brown, who faces the possibility of being removed from Senate, attended more meetings than what was originally recorded, but still missed one meeting, a violation of student government rules.

[…]

The audit, conducted by Senate Ombudsman Jared Axelrod, found that Brown had only missed one, not six, of the 14 required meetings.

[…]

The ASUO Senate Personnel Committee met in early March at the request of the Senate ombudsman, who’s responsible for disciplining senators and documenting their nonfulfillment of duties, and came up with several recommended courses of action against senators who fail to fulfill their requirements.

Now let’s take one more leap, this time to an April 7 resignation letter from Nick Hudson:

Jared Axelrod and Stephanie Erickson forced Amy to resign because “she was not representing her constituency”.
[…]
Had Amy had been confronted with this before, she would have resigned then. Instead, they waited until election season to create a story. These individuals never removed Tyrel Love when he was sleeping during senate meetings, nor Jessica Nair who never showed up to meetings during her last few months as senator. Nor have they taken any action against the missed meetings of Senator Brown.

Is this the sort of enforcement of rules that the Emerald values? It may now, but it didn’t on April 7:

But the blame does not rest solely on [DuFour]. Axelrod and Erickson do know the rules. They should have noticed the problem earlier — before a senator undeserving of her seat received a stipend. Part of the ombudsman’s responsibility is to hold senators accountable, and Axelrod clearly dropped the ball on this.

Indeed. One has to wonder why his performance as Ombudsman is now being lauded.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 12th, 2006 at 19:38 by Ian and is filed under ASUO, Elections, Ol' Dirty Emerald. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.