ADD ONE to the list of secret societies on Grounds. Shrouded in a sea of contradictions, Student Council continues to operate with the opacity of a black hole.
As students may know, Council voted down a measure this week that would have recorded members' votes, along with members' own explanations of those votes, on its public Web site.
The measure, introduced by Graduate School of Arts and Sciences representative Gavin Reddick, would have set up a Web site on which representatives' individual votes would be recorded, along with a written rationale for the vote provided by each member.
The controversy over voting records should not be controversy at all. However, the fact that there are no sound reasons for voting against this measure hasn't stopped some Council members from inventing new, convoluted forms of logic to rationalize their "nay" vote and conceal the true reason behind it -- to evade accountability.
Many Council representatives have argued that publicizing their votes will lead to undue criticism, something members must think never happens to normal politicians.
Some also fear that the records would only be used by "special interest" student groups in order to intimidate Council members. However, what a student might do with information doesn't qualify his or her right to that information.
Council's Director of University Relations, Peter Farrell, disagrees. WhenCouncil was presented with a petition of students urging them to adopt the measure, Farrell chastised the petition's presenter, Cavalier Daily associate Opinion editor Elliot Haspel, in front of Council for not providing a "breakdown" of the signatures. He also accused Haspel of gathering signatures from "special interests like The Cavalier Daily."
The charge was demonstrably false, but that didn't stop Farrell from later caricaturizing the bill as "political bulls**t."
Farrell's job, as director of University relations, is to make Council look good. Publicly calling a petition signed by over a hundred students "bulls**t" makes Council look rude and out of touch.
Farrell expressed to me in a phone interview after the vote his feeling that Council should act and be held accountable as a body. Group accountability, however, means no accountability.
We don't vote for Council representatives as group, so why should we hold them accountable as a group? We don't hold Congress accountable as a group. Nobody writes angry letters to Ted Kennedy because the body to which he belongs supported tax cuts.
If we didn't know how our representatives in Congress were voting, how would we know if they were representing our interests?
But wait! Congress is a political body, and many would argue that is not what Council is meant to be. After all, we elect people to UJC, but it's not political. This argument neglects that the Council constitution says it is a "governing body," and governing bodies, by their very nature, are political
The Council constitution describes the body's purpose as "student self-government." So it's a governing body, whose members run for office promising to "represent to the best of his or her ability the specific interests of the Student Body."
Of course, don't ask them whether they're representing you -- just trust them, they are. If they told you how, even with explanations, you wouldn't understand, and you might even criticize them. They know what's best.
Such condescending reasoning flies in the face of transparency -- transparency which Council has championed in other situations.
Council has led the push to open class evaluations to students. All the same nonsensical arguments used to block voting records could be used against opening class evaluations. Yet there seems to be one standard for Council, and another standard for everyone else.
Students in favor of the voting records bill will place it on the ballot in the spring, taking it upon themselves to do for Council what it has neglected to do for those whom they represent.
Council would look much better passing the bill now rather than having it inevitably forced on them by indignant students. I hold out hope that they will, even after losing almost all faith in their competence.
Herb Ladley's column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at hladley@cavalierdaily.com.
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