I regret deeply that Danielle Moore '95 felt the need to resign as Student Assembly president. Although I did not always agree with the positions she took, she provided a good example of leadership, and I admired her conciliatory approach to Assembly politics which, over the past couple of years, have at times -- though not always, as some believe -- embodied all that is wrong with American politics today.
She was having a hard time and I think that perhaps the poor attendance at Assembly meetings proved to be her biggest bane (and, indirectly, the cause of many problems), however she continued to stick to her beliefs. I can't say that I entirely understand her decision to leave. Some of her arguments do not seem to add up to me.
She said that women as a whole have difficulty acting as leaders in the Assembly. However, last year I was a member of the Administrative Affairs Committee, which was co-chaired by Nina Nho '97. Even as a freshman she was able to garner the support necessary to run the Assembly's largest and most active committee. This year the same committee is being chaired by two women, Anna Ochoa '97 and Stacie Steinberger '98, who, like Nho last year, are able to effectively lead the committee.
Frankly, I think that any distinction between male and female leadership is artificial. There are only two modes of leadership: right and wrong. If a leader's actions and motives pass the morality test, methods are incidental.
What confused me even more, though, were some of the philosophical elements behind Moore's decision. What perplexed me the most was her distinction between the role of activist and government official. It seems to me that the station of an elected official is to be the ultimate activist: the activist who represents the people.
Her statement about not being able to change the system while simultaneously being a member of it was frightening: democracy, being institutionalized revolution through election, is supposed to eliminate this notion.
It may be rough going after the election, but it then remains the responsibility of the true public servant to stay the course and seek to educate students for the next election. I don't think there's such a thing as a choice between sacrifice and self-respect; for me, the amount of sacrifice I make is directly proportional to my self-respect.
Regarding Assembly Secretary John Honovich '97, I can only say this: whether he is right or wrong is not for The D to decide, nor is The D correct in encouraging his forced-exit in Monday's editorial "The Wrong Resignation."
This is a matter for the students to decide via the ballot. Honovich, just like Moore, was legitimately elected. He has not violated the constitution of the Assembly (indeed, this would be difficult to imagine, since Honovich was heavily involved in drafting the document last year).
The D may not approve of some of the actions he has taken, but much of the behavior which is being objected to has been done in his role as a private citizen, not in his role as a member and Assembly secretary.
As far as Honovich making disruptive comments at meetings, Moore and the Executive committee had made a rule at a recent meeting that any behavior deemed "disruptive" would elicit a request by the Executive Committee for the offending member to leave the room for the remainder of the meeting.
Whether or not Honovich committed such acts, Moore and certain other members of the Executive Committee did not wait to see if their measure would work or not: they instead took the unorthodox step of attempting to oust Honovich.
Normally, this type of activity would be branded as partisanship of the worst degree, but now The D is defending it as a means of removal of an offending member.
In my Government 8 class we were reminded of an incident from the 1992 Presidential election: at one point in the election, then President George Bush said the American people had not sent himself and members of Congress to Washington to "bicker."
Columnist George Will responded in a column by stating that, actually, that was exactly what elected officials were supposed to do: bicker towards consensus.
Advocating the removal of an elected individual because he supposedly does not work well with others is anti-democratic and espouses a Utopian vision of the function of legislative bodies: if, in representing the people, they were all to agree and get along, what would be the point in even having them?
In the final summation, it seems that in some ways Honovich represents that role which Moore has been unable to achieve: an activist politician. He does not leave his politics on the floor of the General Assembly: he continues to espouse his point of view and rally student opinion on his own as well.
His methods may rub some the wrong way, but they are certainly within his rights.
The world is very much like the Assembly as Moore describes it: "divided" and "self-interested." And humanity is one organization that she cannot resign from or work outside of. She will have to learn to work within the system.
