Editorial

Cock Fighting

Despite all the complexity of the Special Election story, all of its subplots and hidden agendas, all of its back-stabbing and manipulation, the 1998-99 ASUO/OSPIRG debacle merely relies on the simplicity of chickens. Chickens--as in the cowardice that forced the ASUO Executive to wait until the last minute before submitting its OSPIRG ballot measure. Chickens--as inthe chaos that allowed the ASUO Executive to run an election completely outside of the Constitution's rules. Chickens-as in the dead chickens misled extremists threw at Constitution Court justices' homes in a pathetic attempt at physical intimidation.

Chickens.

What began as a plot to regain funding for a money-less OSPIRG has snowballed completely out of control, from perversion of constitutional provisions to a subversive, corrupt attempt to overthrow a recalcitrant branch of student government. All the fears anyone ever had that student government was not capable of responsibly allocating over $6 million in fees, are manifesting themselves as we speak. Things first seemed fishy in the special election scheme when ASUO president Geneva Wortman sent a memorandum to student groups announcing her plans in early January. Her argument was straightforward until the fifth paragraph, which appeared completely out of place. Amidst a special election designed to streamline the grievance process, would be an opportunity for student groups (read:OSPIRG) to place funding measures up for a vote. President Wortman attempted to justify this move. In a recent Emeraldstory, she claimed: "It is clear, in the Constitution, that if we have an election, we have to give other groups the opportunity to participate in the election." But if, in fact, Geneva seeks to follow the election rules by allowing groups to place ballot measures in the Special Election, she must also follow those rules and make every non-elected Senator faceelection, as well. She cites the rules for regular elections in her case, but rejects them in the other. The more the ASUO Executive seeks to justify their corruption, the deeper is the hole they dig.

Many doubt the legality of the Special Elections. The ASUO cites its legality only with regard to the 1994 precedent set by then-student body president Eric Bowen, who called a special election when the Administration threatened to dissolve the student government structure. There is, thus, precedent to call an election in an emergency situation, but not in order to simply change election rules. And there is no precedent at all to add funding measures to any special election. ASUO Executive Coordinator Cheryl Hunter, who holds a career position in student government, recently wrote a memorandum to the Constitution Court reciting historical information on the 1994 Special Election. According to Hunter, "The onlymeasures on the ballot during the 1994 Special Election were constitutional amendments related to the proposed revisions of the fee process." There were no funding measures on the 1994 ballot, and there is absolutely no precedent to add them now.

But the story gets better. There are three ways for a measure to get onto an election ballot. One can either gather signatures from 5% of the student body, submit it to the Student Senate for approval, or submit it through the ASUO Executive. OSPIRG rode the Executive route, even thoughASUO President Geneva Wortman has been heavily involved in OSPIRG in the past. See a conflict of interest here?

The deadline for submitting ballot measures was Friday, February 5th. ASUO Elections Coordinator Taylor Sturges assured a Commentator reporter that there would be no exceptions to extend this deadline. The following is part of a transcript of their conversation:

TS: "I'm not taking any exceptions. 5 o'clock February 5th. If I don't have it in my hand, it's not going on."OC: "So that applies to the Student Senate and the Executive?"TS: "Everyone. I'm not taking any exceptions because I'm not going to let anyone have an unfair advantage over another group--that's just not fair. I've been through this, so I see how certain things can go. And so, I'm making it as fair as possible. Trying at least, with what I can do."

Either Ms. Sturges was insincere, or she was coerced by her employer, ASUO President Wortman, to extend the deadline once OSPIRG's ballot measure language was rejected. Considering this conversation, the only good reform of the elections process would be to make the elections board completely independent of the Executive office.

Since the Con Court's rejection of the language from OSPIRG's first ballot measure, rumor has abounded within the ASUO that the powers of the Executive and the Constitution Court would come to a head--possibly resulting in the impeachment of the Justices themselves. In the ASUO Constitution, only the Senate has the power to recall Constitution Court Justices, but it is doubtful whether that body can politically justify the move. But the campus "Progressive" party, a group of leftist studentsclosely tied in with OSPIRG, controls most of the Senate seats.Student Senator Autumn DePoe, who was disillusioned by the Special Election process, moved to pass a resolution denouncing the process, in the Feb. 10 Senate meeting. She also moved to censure the ASUO Executive. Student Senate President Michael Olson, who was also heavily involved with OSPIRG in the past, sent the resolution to the Rules Committee, citing a provisionin the Senate rules. Of course, the Rules Committee could not meet before the next Senate meeting--which was to be the date of the Special Elections. Even if they had met, three of the five members of the Committee have been involved with OSPIRG in the past, and it is doubtful that any such measures could emerge from the meeting unscathed.

As of today, the Constitution Court has postponed the Special Elections due to a grievance filed by Scott Austin. The Court has come under heavy fire by extremist ASUO Executive sympathizers, from the letters pages of the Emerald to the minutes of the Student Senate.

By far the scariest thing about all of this is the level of sincerity among those organizing the Special Election. We have little or no doubt that these people think they're doing the right thing. And though it is entirely possible that there is some Machiavellian mastermind pulling the strings behind a curtain in a dark Portland office building, we doubt that the rank-and-file OSPIRG and ASUO sympathizers lack in sincerity--though their actions and words border on zealotry. For example, at a recent Student Senate meeting, Senator Teresa Tobin said "I have no doubt that the election is constitutional. I have no idea why everyone fears democracy so much."

Thanks, Teresa. We do.

Do you grasp that anyone who says something like this is completely delusional? They are so deeply entrenched in "the cause" that they're ready and willing to tear down all of the walls that bring a balance of power to student government. Their rhetoric is straight out of the Hitler/Stalin guide to totalitarianism. Free people need an independent set of administrative courts to protect themselves from the whim of those in power. That the Executive and members of the Senate are trying fervently to disrupt that balance of power is more than disheartening--it is downright frightening. Since when is an independent court not as much a part of democracy as the executioner of the laws? Oh, how quick a free, but ignorant people can stray from the path of Justice!

Hilariously, if OSPIRG regains funding in any election this year, 15% of their projected budget will go toward a "democracy program." It was always questionable what they had in mind with this program. To some extent at least, students know now.

But impeaching the justices on the Constitution Court is so radical a move, that it is doubtful that even the OSPIRG-dominated Student Senate will have the votes to pull it off. And it was at this point of realization that some left-wing extremist faction of the EMU actually moved to physically intimidate the Constitution Court justices.

In the last issue of the Commentator, some original artwork waspublished--the drawing of a hand, labeled OSPIRG, puppeteering a marionette roasted chicken, which was labeled ASUO. Some yet-unknown clever folks from somewhere within the EMU Kremlin turned the message on its head last week, by blowing the image up onto posters and labeling the hand the Commentator and the chicken the Constitution Court.

We had no idea we possessed so much power.

The posters were silly, but what happened next borders on sickness. Another one of those clever folks actually bought dead chickens and placed them on the door steps of two Constitution Court justices' houses. After the political process failed their ends, they resorted to raw physical intimidation.

Is this student government or the Corleone family? What are they trying to say? That the Con Court justices will "sleep with the chickens" if they don't vote the right way next time? The tactics used by these sanctimonious left-wing ideologues is reminiscent of not only KKK cross-burnings, but Nazi Kristallnacht propaganda as well. Not infrequently, the far left crosses a boundary way out on the political horizon and ends up on the extreme right fringe. That's what happened withthe socialist-turned-nationalist Hitler.

There comes a point when the center of debate gets pushed so far to one end of the spectrum that events, otherwise shocking, cease to gain our full appreciation. Student government has been jaded by corruption for so long that events like these don't make us think twice. But what we have here is no less than a plot to steal almost $150,000 from the student body. And the votes they would need in a special election would probably be less than their margin of loss in the generals last year. Their actions merit an academic study into the nature of corruption. It is as though they followed the plays from a corruption textbook.

The aim of politics, rather than the pseudo-utopian endeavor of "making things better," should be only to restrain the evils of humankind. What we are witnessing here in this microcosmic community was portended by Lord Acton long ago when he said "power tends to corrupt; absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely." If the ASUO Executive continues to show thischutzpah and actually moves to recall the Con Court Justices by means of raw political power--for no reason other than that they disagree with their constitutional interpretation-expect the Oregon Legislature to reintroduce a bill to dissolve the incidental fee system. Political power in the hands of one Executive can work, but only if those hands are guided by integrity. The problem with democracy, or any other form of government for that matter, is that the unscrupulous will always gravitate toward the lot of power. And this is what we have in the ASUO right now.

So, in the words of one Marxist revolutionary who sought to end corruption by the few: what is to be done? Move always and everywhere to eliminate the arbitrary coercive power of any "official"--whether that be Agriculture Department bureaucrats who get kickbacks from subsidized farmers, Defense Department contractors who bid for $500 toilet seats, social serviceworkers whose distorted incentives result in a sadistic policy that keeps the poor on welfare, unproductive industrialists who seek to weed out foreign competition by lobbying Congress for higher tariffs, or, at the pettiest level, what we've witnessed here at the U of O with the ASUO and OSPIRG. Chickens.