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.