Stroll down memory lane...

After looking over the current debate on daviswiki.org about the Student Government Advisor's page, I was thinking back to Fall 2004. Some may remember that the Students for an Orwellian Student Senate Slate ran a four ASUCD Senate candidates and a humourous. I happened to be the candidate who lost by 43 votes (thankfully). Anyway, during the campaign, the Elections Committee at the time made two really bad decisions that resulted in them losing two Campus Judicial Board hearings by 7-0 votes. 

One of these decisions was to delete from my flyers the statement: "We will steal less from the Book Store than past Senators." I believe the Elections Committee also deleted similar statements from other SOSSS candidates which made direct reference to the amount of merchandise that former Senator James Ackerman stole from the UC Davis Bookstore. ($356.76 to be precise). The Elections Committee was found at fault for making these deletions. 

The other decision that the former Elections Committee mad which the Campus Judicial Board found them at fault for was their statement, on multiple occassions, that candidates could not campaign before they were approved as official candidates. (Student Focus had been campaigning prior to the verification of their candidate's eligibility.) Ultimately, it was discovered that such a rule did not exist and so the Elections Committee was at fault for informing the candidates of such a rule.

What's interesting, in light of the current discussion about the role of the Student Government Advisor, is that both of these actions taken by the Elections Committee were approved by the Student Government Advisor at the time, Vicki Swett. Entirely unrelated, Swett ended up "retiring" immediately after the Campus Judicial Board hearings. According to Elections Committee members at the time, it was Swett that informed them of the rule that prohibited campaigning prior to the eligibility of candidates. A rule that did not exist. Likewise, the Elections Committee stated that the elimination of references to James Ackerman were also approved by Swett. Once again, the Campus Judicial Board disagreed.

It is precisely these issues of a Student Government Advisor going beyond advising, that concerned me about Vicki Swett and Michael Tucker. Furthermore, I think that it would be useful for the ASUCD Student Government Advisor's position to be formally outlined, approved by the Senate and made public. Whether it's called an Administrative Plan or a Job Description is less important than the existence of such a formal document. Obviously an Advisor could still overstep his or her authority, but it would be harder for people to fall back on the "nebulous" nature of the position as an excuse for bad decisions. This document would also make it easier for individuals to raise complaints when they feel that an Advisor has overstepped her or his roll. 

Having this formal document and hiring someone who will do the job well might prevent future problems between the Student Government Advisor and others. Just some things to think about (and hopefully get done) before the next Student Government Advisor is hired.