By this time, you're probably sick of hearing about the Student Assembly and the antics of its members, especially if you were around to hear about them last year as well. The cynicism is completely understandable. After all, the politicization of the Assembly, while evident last year, has reached ridiculous levels this year.
The unsuccessful effort to impeach Assembly President Nicole Artzer '94 is just the most recent, most obvious and most deplorable example of the political infighting in this year's body. It is quite ironic that much of this squabbling, up to and including the impeachment effort, was instigated by some members of a group who promised to depoliticize the Assembly.
Of course it is very easy to criticize or complain about something and not bother to try to fix the problem. Coming up with a solution, however, is another matter entirely. It is not simply a matter of electing the right people; it is a matter of establishing a framework for future incarnations of the Assembly, one in which attempts at political infighting would not undermine the group's credibility.
The only way to make the Assembly the effective voice for every element of the student body that it should be is to eliminate those aspects of internal Assembly policy that encourage counterproductive squabbling. Just "throwing the bums out," as was done last year, will not suffice; another set of "bums" could walk in and take their place. Much work needs to be done, but there are two key reforms that need to be undertaken if the Assembly is ever going to be able to function correctly: electoral reform and open membership.
The first step is to fix the election process. As of now, it encourages factionalism and divisiveness, most especially the at-large race, of which I have first-hand experience. Voters are asked to vote for 21 candidates, most of whom they likely know nothing about. This encourages the formation of large slates of candidates and whichever faction happens to be the largest at the particular time can conceivably win all 21 seats, or 24 under the proposed new constitution.
This process can lead to the formation of self-serving political parties and, even worse, self-perpetuating political machines. The credibility of the Assembly could be undermined if a student organization or the Dartmouth administration feels that it is dealing with an entrenched political machine.
This problem can be averted by allowing each individual voter 11 votes instead of 21, or 13 instead of 24. This may seem like an anti-democratic measure, but what it does is guard against the formation of large political parties and machines. It also prevents any slate of at-large candidates from forming a majority (among the President, Vice-President and the 21 or 24 at-large members) by themselves. In short, this measure leaves open some room for coalition-forming while also ensuring that a diverse group of interests is represented.
Even more important than electoral reform is the restoration of open membership. The Assembly used to have an open-membership policy until abuses by some groups of students led the Assembly to abolish this policy and give membership power to the Nominations Committee. The actions of this year's Nominations Committee, as Artzer has already pointed out, have demonstrated the potential for abuse of this power - student services took a back seat to petty partisan politics in the approval and/or rejection of new members.
The restoration of open membership, not just in theory, but in actual practice, is crucial to redefining the Assembly as a service organization instead of the fiefdom of some campus faction, be it right, left or center.
Any member who shows sufficient interest in serving on the Assembly by attending three consecutive meetings and joining a committee should be granted voting membership, not "non-voting membership," which is simply a contradiction in terms.
Such a policy should be adopted as soon as possible, and if the current Assembly will not institute open membership, the student body needs to elect an Assembly that will.
To prevent abuses of the policy by students who wish only to participate in certain votes, a strict attendance policy must be instituted and enforced. And, in order to ensure the integrity of the elections, elected leaders should be required to compose a majority of the Executive Committee. In addition, only elected leaders should be allowed on the Nominations Committee.
These and other steps must be taken in order to restore credibility to the Assembly, a body that many students have already left for dead. We have all seen what partisan politics have done to the Assembly; they have turned student government into a long-running joke. The time has come to get serious about reforming the Assembly, before it's too late.
