Wednesday, 4/30/97 USAC errors must be addressed Group lacks regard for checks and balances of system
By Stanley Pham As a first-year student, I usually would never have the nerve to write to the Daily Bruin, but the feature in last Thursday's paper, "A place of their own," was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. I had no problems with the article itself. I thought it was enlightening and I gained new perspective on what life in an apartment might be like. However, I was disturbed with what I learned as a result of the article. I learned that Van Johnson is running for a position in USAC, the Undergraduate Students Association Council. I learned that Anthony Brockington sits on the Election Board, which runs the USAC elections. I also learned from the article that Van and Anthony are roommates, friends and fraternity brothers. I hope I'm not the only one to see that there is a possible conflict of interest here. The E-board is supposed to be impartial in its job of governing over the USAC elections. The $10,000 question is, "Can Anthony Brockington be impartial when it comes to decisions pertaining to his roommate, friend and brother, Van Johnson?" I don't want to imply that Anthony won't be impartial in his decision-making. I merely want to say that because he and Van are close, any decisions handed down by the Election Board could possibly be viewed in some eyes as biased, even though, in reality, they may not be. To me, this just places another dark cloud over a student government which seems to be caught in a thunderstorm right now ... My UCLA career started off innocently enough. I was idealistic (being a pre-med nowadays, you kind of have to be). I was determined to get a degree in four years, perform tons of community service, join student groups and possibly get involved in student government. While I'm still working on my first three goals, I have become less inclined to involve myself with student government the way it currently runs. You ask, "Why?" Let me answer. It was mostly a big deal last quarter, but USAC's decision to overturn the Judicial Board's ruling against them is still a big deal with me now, especially with elections around the corner. Since junior high, I've gotten an earful on the reason we have different branches of government - so that no one branch is able to have absolute power. You know, the whole separation of powers, the checks and balances, and all that good stuff. So I've grown up believing that when Branch A of the government does make a mistake, Branch B goes up and says, "Hey Branch A, you made a mistake. I saw you do it and I'm making sure you don't do it again!" In my little happy world, Branch A acknowledges that it flubbed and tries not to mess up again. Apparently, that's not how it works at UCLA. Here, when USAC messes up and the J-Board calls it on the mistake, what does USAC do? Does USAC acknowledge its mistake? Far from it! USAC overturns the decision made by the J-Board instead. This one decision may seem trivial, but even if it is, it is not by far. What if Thomas Jefferson had overruled the Supreme Court's decision in Marbury vs. Madison? That's exactly what USAC did to the J-Board. What has your government been doing since this? Well, the Academic Affairs office and the General Representatives office sponsored signs on Bruin Walk earlier in the month, which had the headline, "Israeli Independence: Celebrating 49 Years of Oppression." The signs were intended as an antagonistic look at Israeli Independence Day and effectively implied that Israeli Independence was actually the oppression of Palestinian Muslims. Couldn't USAC have sponsored something more productive? An open forum on the issue with guest speakers, perhaps? On the other hand, what hasn't your USAC been doing lately? Well, it didn't stick up for us students when ASUCLA raised our registration fees from $7.50 to $51. It didn't push for a referendum on the matter, and it certainly didn't do any of the protesting that our student government has been known to do so well this year. As you can see, student government has given me much to be disgruntled about this year, my first at UCLA. Alone, the case of a possible conflict of interest concerning Johnson and Brockington probably would not have caused me to write this. However, coupled with all the other flubs student government has made this year, it caused me to feel the need for someone to come out and say, "Hey, student government, USAC, you've made mistakes. I saw you do it and I'm going to make sure you don't do it again!" So there, I said it.