Burnt Orange Report

Go for it.

well andrew, i don't care too much about SG, but if you run, I'll support you =)

My running mate's name is Colby Hanks, and as a regular reader of the Burnt Orange Report, I am glad to see elections covered once again in an honest and upfront manner by students who know the ins and outs of not just campus politics, but those at the university and legislative levels.

To Andrew, I say yes. You should run. This system should not discourage anyone from running who is passionate about their ideas and vision and who wants to effect progressive change. If this is about simply getting your ideas heard, then I want you to know that Colby and I are listening. Unlike many campaigns I've been a part of in the past, the Ignite campaign will be one that will consciously and aggressively seek outside opinions, be open to all ideas and concerns, and will bridge the gap between the SG "insiders" and those who have been unable to get involved because they never know the "right" people or have participated in the "right" communities. This campaign will be about everyone, and I would encourage anyone, even those who have been critical of SG in the past, to come be part of the solution to the problems that SG faces.

Though I'm sure my support doesn't mean very much since I'm in Waco, but I would definitely support you Andrew. And I'm sure I could find $30 or $40 to donate to your campaign.

basically my take on student government elections is that i'll vote for people that I know are good Democrats or progressives. I generally see the whole sg thing as a resume booster and not much else. So with that in mind, I'll support people that will use their experience in sg to help the Democratic/progressive cause. I voted for Brent Purdue of Food not Bombs last year because he was the only candidate who actually talked about any issues that I cared about - and even though he was a Green, he was a relatively well-reasoned one, and not a completely-left-wing-radical guy.

The only SG election I care about is the Daily Texan editor one. That one actually has an impact. The editor has control over page 4 of the most widely read college newspaper in the country. I'll do my best to ensure that there is a solid progressive editor of the paper. Of my four years at UT, only this year have we had a solid progressive Democrat. My freshman year we had a green, and the last two years have been libertarian types.

My main problem with you is that you like to bark a lot but don’t actually back it up with committed effort. You have had a position in SG and failed to make any substantial improvements, which is why I find your criticisms to be rather hypocritical. Like many pundits, you criticize continuously but don’t put in the work to see any actual change, and don’t take into account the political realities of Student Government or the campus in general. This is also one of my problems with UT Watch. It takes comparatively little effort to complain on the sidelines versus skipping classes, work, meetings, and sleep to do the real work that SG does with virtually no recognition.

Another problem with critiques of SG is that they universally fail to compare SG’s performance to that of other student governments. This is akin to so many students who like to condemn their middle and high schools without any knowledge of the quality at other comparable institutions. The UT-Austin Student Government, is distinctly better than the student governments at the other Big 12 schools, as has been shown at regional student government conferences, despite the extremely low budget SG controls compared to other schools. True, SG is definitely not perfect and I fully agree that it needs to improve, but you also need to realize that UT-Austin has an excellent student government compared to other schools. Then again, critics of SG haven’t been known to produce well-researched or informed critiques.

I agree with you that the ticket system needs to be reformed, as do a significant number of current SG people. In fact, an exploratory committee was formed to investigate forming a third ticket late last semester based on this issue, but we found that it was too late in the game for the ticket to attract qualified candidates and have a chance at winning. This movement has transitioned to an internal committee, chaired by Lauren Karchmer, which will analyze the problem and recommend long-term solutions. It’s on the dl to reduce electoral spinning and keep the work objective. You should contact Lauren if you’re interested in helping out (do you actually care enough to go to meetings instead of blabbing about it on BOR?).

You’re incorrect in stating that “SG didn't have ‘tickets’ in their elections before the late 90s.” First of all, the contemporary rise of large electoral tickets began in 92, and more importantly, this was not the first use of tickets in SG elections, which is a common misconception. Of particular note is the 1945 “University of Texas Party,” which held a party convention to nominate candidates and agree upon a twenty-item platform. In the past tickets often oriented on greek and “barb” (independent) lines. This is a topic that needs to be better analyzed by the Historical Research Agency, to be sure. I would be interested to see the effect of tickets on voter turnout, because it’s not clear whether they help or hurt turnout.

You’re also at least partially wrong in arguing that the ticket system is fundamentally about money. The greatest benefit of the ticket system is that it associates the candidates with an easily identifiable name, which also makes electoral decisions easier for the voters (just like in “real” elections, where party identification is the best voting predictor). Instead of being forced to evaluate the qualifications of candidates for about 13 positions (3 college, 8 at-large, 2 executive), students can simplify the decision to a choice between the major tickets, which have substantial PR machines. There is a money benefit stemming from economies of scale, but this is countered by the higher spending limits for candidates not running on a ticket. This is especially applicable to candidates running for a college position, where the limit is $500 for individual candidates and $175 for ticket-based candidates under the new election code. In small schools the individual candidate could possibly have a tactical advantage over the ticket-based candidate because the 187% higher budget can be fully devoted to the voters in that college, assuming they can fundraise or finance the $500. Moreover, it’s an oversimplification to deny platform and ideological differences between campaigns, though I believe the biggest difference between tickets lies in which individuals are running, a factor difficult to evaluate or predict.

Regarding lobbying at the capitol, have you made the effort to attend an LRA meeting or join one of their committees? Barring that, I suspect that Favad would appreciate a strategy memo at the very least. Lobbying for tuition re-regulation has been discussed at the behest of UT Watch, but LRA and SG eventually decided that they could not lobby for both a student on the Board of Regents and tuition re-regulation. SG’s analysis of the tuition re-regulation environment has been that there is not sufficient support for it right now. I’m no expert on Texas politics though, so I can’t say how wise the decision was. What I have heard is that capital politicians are going to “penalize” UT for the large tuition hikes by reducing appropriations even more; not exactly the best strategy in my opinion, since it merely justifies further tuition increases. In the end, SG has much greater power lobbying the UT administration than the Lege.

Which agencies do you think are wasting money, and what evidence do you have? You’re also forgetting the overall picture, which is that the SG budget is an infinitesimal part of the UT budget, and much more so for individual agency budgets. It’s a drop in the bucket indeed to try to save students money by cutting a thousand dollars here and there from different SG agency budgets. That said, I have always been a staunch supporter of better internal evaluations of all components of SG. My predominant desire is for the Executive Director to develop a formal list of goals for the agencies, reps, and exec at the beginning of the term, then conduct mid-term evaluations of these goals and to recommend the resignation of the pure resume-padders. My intense dislike of the Community Messages Agency stems from its constant attraction of directors who do basically nothing for a year. If you like, and maybe even if you don’t, I would be up for sponsoring and/or authoring a bill to create an Inspector General-style agency which would evaluate the effectiveness of the different components of SG. Another possibility is to form a small, independent student organization devoted to this task, or to subcontract the job to other political organizations like UT Watch, YCT, and UDems. In the past YCT has performed analyses of the SG budget and recommended changes, though the last one I remember reading about was in the 80s I think, when YCT-SG relations were more heated.

SG lobbied very hard against tuition deregulation, along with YCT and UT Watch, and it is disingenuous for you to suggest otherwise. SG is the only organization that has consistently fought against tuition increases on a long-term basis.

I am fine with you running, as long as you make honest criticisms and put your free time where you mouth is. At the very least you will make the elections more interesting, better-covered in the Texan, and more motivating for me to write firing lines and guest columns.

Byron, you’re wrong in suggesting that a vote for Dobbs would support progressive causes, besides it being a bad way to evaluate SG candidates in general. The primary way in which partisan leanings manifest themselves in the SG presidency is on race-issues: affirmative action, funding for minority agencies and organizations, diversity components, and recruiting from underrepresented high schools. On this and many other social issues, Andrew has shown himself to be quite conservative. I also stick to my prediction that it is only a matter of time before Andrew formally switches parties.

You make some good points about the effectiveness of SG that I think have been largely ignored for fear of being labeled an "activist" SG. If you can run, then do it. At least the issues would get out there and students could start holding SG to a higher level of accountability on larger issues affecting the university. SG could be so much more than a resume builder.