UCSA congress has always held a
special place in politics for me. From its voting method to its impromptu
cafeteria coalitions, the entire process is filled with the energy and
reflective inefficiency of true Democracy. Last summer, spending $.10 a minute
in a Quito Internet cafe, I eagerly checked what the students had voted on to
be their yearlong campaign. I was more than delighted to see they had chosen
Regent Reform. Similar campaigns had come up before, but their dry procedural
nature, though tangibly able to increase the students' control of their future,
caused them to get lost amongst the charismatic speeches supporting the more
sexy campaigns. But this year regent reform had been fairly elected by the UC
students just as the other campaigns had in the past. The democratic process
had selected a campaign I loved just as it had selected others I didn't always
agree with. I respected those other campaigns however. The Congress, with an
engaged, informed and intelligent population of voters taking days to hash out
details, represented the height of true democratic process. To not respect the
campaigns this congress picked would be have to no faith in the process of
Democracy itself. This year however the plan was set, the history explained,
and the troops ready for the first Regental Reform in 30 years. I expected the
UCSA board and the various lobby corps to push hard for this campaign just as I
and they had done in the past with other campaigns.
And then, nothing. The campaign was
dropped with zero outside progress made. My next three weeks were dedicated to
finding out why the board had turned against the student's wishes. The
investigation allowed me to find some major inefficiencies with UCSA that I
believe all helped contribute in some way to this and past controversial decisions
by the board. First was the fact that the UCSA board minutes and agendas are
not readily available. They are not on the official website (specifically no
documents can be found under the "Document" section as of 8/6/13),
nor are they posted on their official Facebook page. This caused many students
concern last summer when the board released a statement urging divestment from
Israel. Not making minutes readily available is against the California
Constitution as well; Art. I Sec. 3 (b)(1-3) and Art. IV Sec. 7.
I knew from the website and my work
in BLC that the lobby corps and board were working heavily on a campaign called
Fighting Incarceration Reclaiming Education (FIRE), a noble cause, but one
brought up as a supposed afterthought months after congress. With no minutes to
see the discussion about the swap between Regent Reform and the FIRE Campaign,
I had to start asking people knowledgeable about both campaigns and the board
members themselves. This is where I found a second major stumbling block. No
one seemed to be able to tell me what was going on with anything. Many couldn't
recount events, only able to provide me with generally what happened. They had
trouble finding even personal minutes so that the order of things could not be
confirmed. I also heard from various people close to each campaign that: the
regent reform was supposed to be a two year campaign, that regent reform
legislation was written, and that the FIRE campaign was brought to the
students. Only the written legislation seemed to pan out.
With the help of some sympathetic
board members and campaign leaders I was able to attain enough documents to tie
together just how Regent Reform was dropped and the FIRE campaign taken up. On
Oct 13th the UCSA Board of Directors was first notified that a grant proposal
had been submitted the day before to Rosenberg Foundation for $25,000. On the
16th board members were notified that they were not bound to accepting the
money and that the board themselves could decide once they knew if the grant
was awarded or not. However if they accepted the grant, all money would specifically
have to go into prison reform. The president of UCSA at the time justified this
move by saying it only opened up opportunity for board money, while not
restricting them to the president's wishes and thus was an appropriate use of
her office to apply. I completely agree with this. However the board did not
take it to the various students. On Dec. 10 the Organizing and Communications
Director announced to the board that, "The Rosenberg Foundation grant to
work on prison reform was approved!" The president made an interim
decision and accepted the money. The board at a later date approved this
decision. Once again there is no public record that could have told any
students this was going to be talked about, or that it was decided and voted on
after the fact. In many EVP offices they were not even aware of the money. Even
before the dropping of Regent Reform, prison reform took considerable resources
as a full time intern was hired to help in the task.
When
it came time to plan for the Student Lobby Conference (SLC) in March, regent
reform was not in the talking points. This was because the legislative director
could not find an author for the bill the students wanted. She then suggested
it be made into a two-year bill. This is understandable as big paradigm
changing bills usually need a culture started around them first (See Fund the
UC). At the next UCSA Board meeting in April, in the undergraduate caucus,
there was an unofficial vote to change the focus of Regent Reform away from the
student campaign and towards filling Regental vacancies with student-friendly
appointments. The board justified this by saying that a "potential
author" wanted to see support and coalitions before moving forward with Regent
Reform. For this to be accomplished the board would need to devote considerable
attention and resources to Regent Reform for the rest of the year. A divided
board voted and chose to drop Regent Reform completely and focus all attention
on the FIRE Campaign. As far as I know (once again no minutes), the full board
never officially voted making their decision completely behind closed doors (even
if Art. I Sec. 3 prohibits this behavior specifically).
This is the third problem I see
that allowed for this reversal to happen. The board has not actively held
themselves accountable to the various students who voted them in and pay for
the resources they use and stipends they receive. Worst of all they dropped the
student-selected campaign while completely within the bounds of their powers. Yet
I still find this unacceptable as UCSA actively uses the numbers it has behind
them to influence policy. In lobby visits at the various schools as well as at
SLC, lobbyists are encouraged to use the support of the entire UCSA student
population to get politicians attention. In lobby visits FIRE was presented as
a campaign of the students, citing the number of students that belong to UCSA
as their legitimacy. And yet the campaign these same students organized and
voted on was dropped. The students' voice was purchased for $25,000 dollars. So
I ask our new UCLA board member and board member designates: Maryssa Hall,
Tyler Cherry, Anthony Phan and Andrea Chu, what will you do to make sure this
does not happen again? How will you make sure when you use our numbers and our
money that it is truly in line with our wishes? How will you make sure that
UCSA Congress actually means something and is not just an expensive fancy show
like last year’s congress?
