It is a place where everyone is supposed to have a voice. If people try hard enough, they should be able to get anything done. Yet this place is bogged down in bureaucracy, voter apathy and partisan bickering that makes it impossible to ever get any major work done in the government.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the University of Wisconsin.
The efforts of Jackie Helmrick and the Badger Party to put the seg-fee opt-out proposal on the next Associated Students of Madison ballot is nothing short of amazing. At a school where barely 10 percent of the student body votes, they were able to collect more than 4,000 signatures over the course of a few weeks. Their diligence in collecting these signatures was hard to miss and being solicited to sign a petition probably annoyed some people. Yet the fact that the party was able to get their proposal on the ballot by working within a system in which getting a proposal to the ballot is virtually impossible.
Despite the efforts of a few students, however, the seg-fee opt-out proposal may still never see the light of day. Josh Orton and Joe Laskowski have taken it upon themselves to decide what is good for the student body and have challenged the methods by which the signatures were collected to keep the proposal off of the ballot this month. Rather than let the student body decide what it wants-a rare opportunity in and of itself-Orton and Laskowski have decided that maybe they can dictate the system by allowing the proposal to get bogged in the student judiciary.
I happen to agree that a seg-fee opt-out system is not a good idea. Even with students' best efforts to be fair, several worthy student organizations-especially organizations serving minority students-wouldn't be able to receive the funding they need to operate effectively. However, it is important to let the democratic system work in this case. The signatures have been collected. If the proposal isn't going to happen, it should be blocked not by two crusaders but by the student body itself.
By collecting enough signatures to put their proposal on the ballot, the Badger Party has brought an issue to the forefront that students care about. If students are allowed to vote on the proposal, voter turnout will improve greatly. Not only has their effort opened up an interesting debate, but it will increase student interest in ASM and, consequently, voter turnout in upcoming elections.
The student judiciary should reject the challenge Messrs. Orton and Laskowski have brought before them and allow the opt-out proposal to reach the ballot. A reasonable debate among students is much more productive than a procedural challenge by two people who think they can disregard students' concerns. I hope that debate over the proposal itself will lead to it being voted down by students. But regardless of whether or not the proposal passes, the debate over it will be good for ASM and the student body as a whole.
In an editorial written in a newspaper whose name I shall not mention here, Mr. Orton says that the current system, while inefficient, is practical if we are to give all student organizations what they need. \Long live inefficient, threatening education,"" he writes. It is important that we have such ""inefficiencies"" in our education system so that all students can have the opportunities they need.
However, we also need a student body that is involved, and the debate over the opt-out proposal will make students less apathetic toward ASM in general. I support what Mr. Orton calls ""inefficient education,"" though I find that description a bit odd. But the efforts of him and Mr. Laskowski to block the seg-fee opt-out proposal from reaching the ballot, if they are successful, will continue this university's tradition of inefficient government and an apathetic student body. And that isn't good for anyone.
