Monday, April 29, 1996
Impeachment process necessary to set things straightBy Tanya Mahn
Sometimes someone leaves the garbage behind, and even though you didn't make the mess you've got to clean it up.
Well, last year's student government council, unfortunately, left behind some dirty laundry that this year's council had to clean up. And no matter how hard you try, when you clean up the garbage, you end up getting a little dirty.
Here's what happened. Generally speaking, two "slates" run for student government offices. One, known last year as Students First!, is made up of a coalition of mostly organizations of people of color and students who wanted to see student government work on real world issues. The other, known as the Bruin Action Team last year, is mostly made up of members of the greek system. For two years prior, the "greek slate" had dominated student government, and nobody thought they were beatable.
Last year was different. Students First! won most of the offices and found out that the greeks had a hard time letting go of long-held power in student government.
Here's where the story gets more complicated. There are certain rules one must abide by so that elections are fair. An Election Board is appointed by the council to see to it that everyone plays by those rules and abides by the election code.
Before the elections, the Bruin Democrats ran a full page ad pledging their support for the Student's First! slate. The ad had been pre-approved by the Election Board, and supposedly everything was hunky-dory.
But after losing so many offices, the greek-supported slate filed a complaint that the ad was illegal and violated Election Board rules. They demanded redress, even though the Election Board had already said the ad was perfectly legal.
Greek supporters, including last year's president, Rob Greenhalgh, decided to try and overrule the Election Board by complaining to the Judicial Board.
The Judicial Board hypothetically acts as a mini-Supreme Court. Unless student government overrides them by a three-fourths vote, the Judicial Board has the final word to interpret bylaws and procedures when complaints are filed. The Judicial Board also happened to be "stacked" by friends of Rob Greenhalgh and greek supporters.
So what happened when Greenhalgh filed a complaint stating that Student's First! had violated election rules because of the Bruin Democrat ad, which was approved by the Elections Board in the first place? The Judicial Board decided to rule the elections results invalid, but it upheld the results of one of the few greek candidates that won, General Representative Cheryl Chang. This meant all the Student's First! officers that had been democratically elected by overwhelming margins would have to run again.
This abuse of power caused an uproar. Petty politics are one thing but invalidating and overturning entire elections to get your candidates in the door? We went from student government elections to some weird, crazy world where some crackpot dictators are trying to control and rig elections. Not only was this a most blatant violation of basic democratic principles, but the irresponsible actions of the student-run Judicial Board made all students look bad.
Elections, at this point, seemed almost irrelevant. Members of the Student's First! slate filed a temporary restraining order with the Los Angeles Municipal Court against the Judicial Board to prevent Greenhalgh's administration from carrying out their decisions. The restraining order seemed to snap Rob and Co. out of their despotic fantasy and back into the real world the place where elections, even student government elections, cannot be arbitrarily overturned.
The Judicial Board hastily reconvened, introduced alleged new evidence and decided it didn't really want to overturn elections, after all. Instead, the Judicial Board (probably beginning to realize the extent of its "fuck-up") decided to let Election Board deal with it. It now ruled that it was only a campus Judicial Board, and probably should not be handing out its own election results.
That, folks, is the garbage that this year's Student's First! officers inherited. Whether they liked it or not, this year's council was charged with the responsibility of dealing with a Judicial Board either horribly corrupt or horribly incompetent. What to do? What to do?
Student government launched an investigation. Headed up originally by three Undergraduate Student Association Council officers, the number dwindled to one, due to time conflicts and questions of conflicts of interest.
Of course, there were problems. Investigations like these are rare. And there is no one clear-cut way to do them. So you do them the best you can, trying as hard as possible to stick to Robert's Rules of Order (the bureaucrats handbook).
In the end, the evidence showed two justices had clearly violated their own processes and procedures. One broke the rules by promising not to decide a case involving a friend, which he later did anyway. The other broke the rules by speaking to Rob Greenhalgh (also the greek candidates manager) during closed deliberations concerning the overruling of elections, which demonstrated a clear conflict of interest. The former resigned. The latter was removed by a vote of 10 council members (including neutral non-Students First! council members) at a recent meeting.
Well, it seems our Judicial Board might be at it again. They recently ruled that the impeachment was not binding because the council meeting started 20 minutes late. And according to their interpretation, any meeting that starts late cannot be binding even though, throughout the years, councils have started late. Funny, the chief justice, who supported that decision and was appointed by Rob Greenhalgh last year, was, himself, appointed during a meeting that started 35 minutes late. Seem a bit ironic and hypocritical?
It looks like it might not be quite over. Unfortunately, the dirt and the corruption lingers on and on, making all students look bad. Maybe the "J" in Judicial Board really stands for Joke?
Mahn is a fifth-year political science student.