Burnt Orange Report

Good stuff KTM!

- Matt

I'm interested as to why you never made these arguments during the redistricting debate.

These arguments all continue to seem disingenuous because, despite Matt's distinctions in his other comment, the action that everyone is presently lambasting is really not that different from what the Dems did here in Texas to prevent redistricting or what either party is doing in Washington every time they filibuster a bill. In all these cases, representatives are simply using parliamentary procedure in order to achieve a desired goal. Representatives have the right to and should use every manuever available to block legislation they do not believe in. Everyone would be shrieking about how they "failed their constituents" (ironically, 85% of whom, lets be honest, couldnt care less whether any of this crap gets passed or not) if they rolled over and allowed a bill they oppose to pass. So lets lay off Stanis (as he is apparently being labeled as the leader of this little parade) and company.

First, I'll refer to Dobb's Texan firing line. Second, the public wasn't behind re-redistricting to begein, whereas here, the studetn populace is for election reform. In both cases there were apathetic voters, but for those that do have an opinion it sets the cases apart. And most of the conservaties who are jumping on the quorum busting comparisons are being hypocritical as well, considering they seem to be all for Stannis' move but not the Democrats. You don't actually believe any of, it's just a convenient attack line that makes you feel good. Y'all can't have it both ways either

First of all, according to your own website, it was indetermined whether the public was behind or against redistricting.

https://burntorangereport.com/archives/000265.html

According to Byron in that piece, ya'll said "No one will know what the voters of Texas really think about redistricting until next November, when the voters have an opportunity to let everyone know." There's still a Republican majority, so I'm guessing that the voters of Texas weren't against the redistricting, which makes your first distinction ring hollow.

Second, I'm in favor of the election reform package. I just find it extremely hypocritical that the second running and not voting doesn't suit you, this site immediately attacks the practice.

Yeah, I said in my firing line and in my post here on BOR that I'm not going to decry the maneuver itself, as I supported the Killer Ds (and the "Ticket Splitters" is just a fun term I thought of). Still, I think that there is a big difference in standing against a plan to fundamentally alter our congressional map in a way that makes our congressional delegation less representative and less responsive to constituent needs and a plan to open SG up to more people. One limited representation, one improves it.

And I still like Grant Stanis and Courtney Livingston a lot, I think that they are bright people. But I think that they were wrong on this issue, and I've said so publicly several times now.

Personally, I thought what the dems did was fine. I did not see anything wrong or unethical about leaving the state if it was effective. Second, there is no way of knowing or proving that the "student populace" is behind these election reforms. Seemingly they are not because the vast majority of the people they just elected to represent their views believe election reform is bad. In fact, that would indicate the students actually oppose reform - if we can assume student opinion is manifested in their representatives.

To andrew, whether this "improves" representation is obviously a point of contention. I do not agree and I think redistricting improved Texas representation. It was absurd that such a dark red state had a majority Dem delegation.

All of this talk is pretty pointless when the fact of the matter is we should have a vote tomorrow. So contact your reps and tell them to get their asses there. It's as simple as that.

Just pointing out that you supported the tactic when it suited you, and now that it doesn't, you immediately change tack.

That's all.

Comparing SG to the Texas Lege is a difficult claim to make. The Assembly had a total of 44 pieces of legislation this term and the deceptive quorum breakers precluded Assembly action on the last 3 bills (6.8% of the total legislation) without a special session.

SG is an organization that constantly battles student apathy and claims of inactivity, which is why intentionally breaking quorum is so incredibly disrespectful to students and Student Government.

The claim of the Liberal Arts reps is that they were "representing" constituents, because Liberal Arts Council voted 19-18 against AB 18. LAC is an important organization in the college of liberal arts, but it is in no means representative of public opinion. Clayton was the only quorum-breaker to actually attend the LAC meeting or the open forum on election reform. None of the SG members who claimed the process was rushed actually attended the open forum to address the issue (3 hours), and most of them did not attend the Assembly Rules committee meeting either (4 hours).

By breaking quorum a very small number of representatives disallowed others from voicing the opinions of their constituents. It is also upsetting that there has been no disapproval from the SG leadership of their actions. Luckily the new Assembly has some idea of the tactics they will face in the next term.

Burnham, what leads you to believe that "everyone would be shrieking about how they 'failed their constituents'" if they had not broke quorum? Please, let's see what kind of SG experience or examples you have that can support such a ridiculous statement. Have you even attended a full SG meeting?

"there is no way of knowing or proving that the 'student populace' is behind these election reforms"

Oh really. Have you ever heard of a referendum? Besides that, J.W. and I are about to activate a statistically random student opinion survey, which should include a question on ticket abolishment since there is so much debate on what students support. We can generate very solid data on what students support.

"Seemingly they are not because the vast majority of the people they just elected to represent their views believe election reform is bad. In fact, that would indicate the students actually oppose reform - if we can assume student opinion is manifested in their representatives."

You're not even paying attention. One of the results of the ticket system is that candidate speech is suppressed and they are basically only allowed to promote ticket platform items that were ultimately chosen by the campaign "core" - an elite group of organizers whose main goal is to get the entire ticket elected. Instead of individual speech and opinion variance we have collective speech and moderate position-taking. The reality is that individual candidates do not necessarily agree with any particular platform item, or, perhaps more importantly, care strongly enough about the platform item to get it accomplished. The platform is a more an expression of executive priorities than representative promises.

Finally, the vast majority of candidates have no SG experience and hence have little to no opinion on election reform. Their only interaction with SG has been their current ticket-oriented election campaign. Besides, it would be very difficult for a campaign to include ticket-abolishment on its platform without appearing logically inconsistent, and it is impossible for a non-ticketed individual to win any at-large position.

Thank you Chris. I was about at the point to bring up James's comparative lack of qualifications for Union Board in comparison to his opponents and his running mate, Bagel Boy, as an example of why the system is broken and why that is the real issue at hand. I would dream of the day when SG could be compared to the Texas Leg on equal grounds of legislative accomplishments.

Yeah speaking of which, last night the AB 19 authors agreed to add a provision to prevent Union Board candidates from running on an SG ticket.

Having been a participant on the infamous Tuesday night meeting I want to offer my opinion on some points. I think this comment is kind of long, my apologies for that.

On Tuesday night I supported AB18 and I am still a supporter of election reform. I say this with the clear understanding that there is not a perfect system and that both approaches (tickets or non tickets) have several virtues and flaws. There are several arguments that lead me to support change: as a graduate student, I think that the elimination of tickets will actually boost participation of graduate students (a problem that SG has not been able to solve) as voters and candidates; I think that many graduate students are deterred from participating because they see tickets as just a club of undergrad kids (and I am not intending to be disrespectful, I personally don’t view things that way). The second argument in favor of change is that with 43 independent representatives, hopefully, the production of ideas and projects will increase, since right now most of the representatives limit themselves just to work on some of the specific items in their platforms. Third, I subscribe to Zach Neumann’s argument (read his Tuesday post on this) that this kind of reform will expand the pool from which representatives can come, having some new blood. And fourth, I totally agree with what one of the students that came to talk about the bill said: we have the opportunity to innovate and test and change things – we have seen that there are problems with the ticket system and we can try something new now; what’s the worse that can happen? That the assembly will be divided? That’s not much different as it is right now. That the assembly is not going to do anything? That wouldn’t be different as if we elected a bad ticket. Is the University of Texas going to collapse? Certainly not. We can always change it back.

But I also have some problems with the bill. I think that despite three weeks of working on this, the authors didn’t include some of the concerns that others had and failed to do a better job writing the legislation. I have a huge problem with one of the amendments that Representative Gladney-Lemon offered and was approved: the impossibility of presidential and vice presidential candidates to run together. Her “first amendment” concern was basically crap. If we pass a legislation that keeps president and vice president from running together, we will be in practice, precluding students from smaller schools to win a presidential campaign. Let’s say it openly: do you think that a conservative student from the Business School is going to win a majority of the votes at the College of Liberal Arts or Natural Sciences, without the help of a vice presidential candidate that comes from any of those schools? We would be making, in practice, a law against an individual, and that would be what goes against the Constitution, not the other crappy arguments. I cannot vote for a bill that will disenfranchise some individuals in that way. I don’t support the vilification of Grant Stanis. He did what any of us would have done if we saw that our rights were about to be violated. I don’t have a problem with him, he just showed us one more time his impressive parliamentary and political skills. I have a problem with those that are just obsessed with getting their individual concerns approved and never measure the consequences of their acts (LGL), of those that from the shadows operated to filibuster this and never really took a public stand (like, the incoming SG President), with those that don’t have their own criteria (like the other ticket-splitters) and with those that were clearly unprepared to defend their bill and to face real world political tactics. Tomorrow, I will offer an amendment to repeal LGL’s amendment and restore the original purpose of the bill.

I have a long post that addresses these arguments. I didnt want to clog up BOR so it at my blog, www.westcampusinsider.blogspot.com. Yall are starting to bring me around...

Thanks James, I read you post and you make some good points. And you will have to let me apologize for continually making Bagel comments, but really, it's much too fun not to.

Well it is sort of funny....

I just want to make a quick point regarding James' argument that, since the voters elected reps who don't support election reform, they must not support election reform. This might be true, had the issue of eliminating tickets been on the public radar before elections. But since it wasn't reported heavily in the Texan until afterwards, how can you argue that those elected share the opinion of the public on this issue?