The Great Change: Turning Cathy into a Lawyer

The LSA meeting to elect the executive board this year had SEVEN (7) people there to vote. The SBA elections had over 500 voters. So before you challenge the mandate of the SBA and suggest that perhaps the LSA is the proper place for student decisions to be made you ought to consider this.

Don't get me wrong I believe the LSA is a great organization that accomplishes many important things on behalf of students. The real question is where does this animosity come from?

For transparency purposes it should be known that the IP Law Society, the organization of which you decry their poor treatment, recieved every penny it asked for over the last two semesters. Yet last semester money allocated from student activity fees to your group went unused. Other organizations did not recieve the money they needed so that 60% of the money you requested could languish in the bank account without ever benefiting the students.

My recomendation is that you run for SBA next year, fix all "the problems" rather than passive aggressively posting on your blog.

As an elected member of the Student Bar Association, I am compelled to comment on this apparent attack on the manner in which we operate. For the sake of transparency and to avoid the perception that I speak on behalf of the entire SBA, my name is Craig Robinson and I am one of four 2L representatives. I do not speak in an official manner as an SBA member, only as an individual with first-hand knowledge. I think it appropriate to address each concern in turn:

The SBA presidency: I cannot agree with you more that it was a shame that the former president was a great person, that he put an inordinate amount of time and effort into streamlining the process, and that we were all sad to see him step down from his position. However, his reasons for stepping down were his own and it would have been very inappropriate for SBA to divulge those reasons. Furthermore, the election of an SBA president is accompanied by the election of an SBA “vice president.” Should the president be unable or unwilling to continue in that position, the vice president takes his or her place and I would find it disheartening of students were not aware of that process. The general student body election of a vice president is the election of a person whom the voters believe to be capable of filling the role of president if need be. While perhaps some people would have liked an official announcement of the resignation, it was decided that the best interests of all involved were served.

The Spring Semester Budget Meeting: Now you lament that certain individuals voted against your groups activities and assert that perhaps those votes against you were personal in nature. Let me make clear right now that I personally voted against the same activity you are concerned about. The activity in question was, at the time of voting, very poorly planned – essentially a speaker program with no date set, no speaker lined up, and no real assurance that the event would even occur. If you review the budget guidelines as SBA requests that all groups do before submitting funding requests, you will note that Guidelines, Section 3, subsection f, speaks to “Speakers & Panels.” It explicitly states, “The date, location and speaker(s) must be finalized prior to the submission of a funding request.” Perhaps it would be more appropriate to charge the votes against your event to poor group planning than to alleged personal vendettas.

In reviewing your groups finances over the past semester (all of which is publicly available to any who seek it out), it should be noted that your group requested $500 in funding for last semester which was approved. Of that $500, only $215 was actually used – the remainder sat in the group account for the semester and essentially drew funding away from groups who may have put it to use. In addition, your group ran at a deficit last year of over $200 which, while I acknowledge that you personally may not have been involved, is a consideration for the SBA when reviewing your requests for this semester.

The “Lack of Transparency” of SBA: The SBA is a general student body elected group charged with the unsavory duty of determining funding for student group activities. It requires that each of us often has to vote against an activity that we personally feel should not enjoy the funds of the school and it should be noted that recently we have voted down very few activities. This may be most evidenced by the fact that the SBA approved your speaker event despite explicit budget guidelines. While we do not record each individual vote, I think it fair to say that personal vendettas against you or any other individual are not enough to sway a decision as a whole. Furthermore, to ask the SBA to record each individual vote when we are asked to review on average about four activities per group with twenty-six groups in whole is absurd. The process is lengthy enough without requiring such a tedious endeavor. There is no “big secret” to who votes for what activity. If any group is concerned over votes, they are more than welcome to record for themselves who votes in which direction. With a moderate number of members on SBA who are elected, it would seem that any concerned individual should know who their representatives are and be able to account for the “nay” votes.

Finally, it is inappropriate to indict the SBA election as a popularity contest. To do so is to claim that the voting members of the school are less concerned with events, student group funding, etc. than they are with voting the popular “cliché” into office. I hope we have all reached the point now where high school has ended and we have matured beyond such childish games. Individuals are elected because the people voting believe them to represent their best interests. Furthermore, unlike some smaller student groups where a very small number of people elect officers who then assert their representation of the entire school, the SBA is elected by the student body as a whole; how this could result in a school-wide popularity contest eludes me.

My recommendation is this: If you believe the SBA or any other student group is being run poorly, the most appropriate response is not to make allegations of personal vendettas. Such personal attacks fall into the realm of childish games that I hope we as individuals have matured beyond. Instead, perhaps you personally should run for office. If, as you assert, the student body is demanding such transparency on behalf of the SBA, then present yourself as a candidate for SBA president in the upcoming academic year. Step forth and make the changes from within... but do not reduce yourself to making empty allegations and criticisms. They serve little purpose and only undermine what you believe to be a valid stance.

- Craig Robinson

(With regard to the first comment)

You are reading things into my post that weren't there:

I never advocated for the LSA to take the place of the SBA. When I mentioned "administration" my point was that I have a better idea what they are up to than I do the SBA.

I also did not bring up the particulars of my group's budget, though I did indicate that we received what we requested.

All my post said was that:

a) there was no notification about the change in the SBA presidency, and
b) there is no way to audit individual officers' votes

and that these failings make the SBA as a governing body untransparent and unaccountable and should be rectified.

I welcome the SBA to take steps to do so, and will be happy to acknowledge it here when those changes have been implemented.

Craig,

I thank you for your comments and your clarification about some of the issues the SBA considered in voting on budgets. But this goes to my point. Until you came here, I didn't know who you were. I didn't know how you voted, or why. Your explanation is very helpful and I see your perspective but there was no other reliable avenue for me to have found this out. Only because I happened to have posted here and it happened to have been discovered has there been any open communication on the subject. My point about transparency is that this kind of disclosure should be routine, and not something that might or might not come about ad hoc.

Also, I didn't post because I had some sort of ax to grind. This isn't about me, or my group... this is about a process. It isn't personal. I don't even harbor any particular animosity to the person I recognized who voted down my group's budget (not wanting to re-elect her is not the same thing as disliking her, as I'm sure you realize.) My concern is much more for the next group president that comes along and doesn't get what he/she needs, and lacks the mechanism for figuring out why.

If you read my blog regularly you'll notice that I often pontificate on the importance of governmental transparency. It's something I feel strongly about, whether it's in reference to the federal government, or student government. Transparency matters regardless of the scope or mission of the governing body: if it's an elected body empowered to act on the behalf of people, it *always* should wield that power openly and auditably. I simply want to raise more awareness of its importance, in all contexts.

Cathy,

If I understand you correctly, your point is that you do not know who represents you on SBA or how they vote regarding events. This would be a valid point if SBA representatives were appointed outside a student election and students were required to search out who was speaking for them at any given time. Moreover, this would be a valid point if student group representatives were not present during actual voting.

In regard to not knowing me before today, the SBA membership is public knowledge. As I pointed out earlier, your representatives are elected by the entire student body with the results of the election subsequently announced. Therefore, it would stand to reason that any student so concerned with transparency of representation would first familiarize themselves to at least some extent with SBA members. Attendance at SBA sponsored events is not required to know who we are. The SBA office door is almost always open for anyone to introduce and familiarize themselves. In the alternative, a mere facebook suffices for this purpose. Ignorance of SBA individuals cannot function as the foundation for a complaint over lack of governmental transparency.

With that in mind, if you fail to acquaint yourself with us as members of SBA, how does disclosure of our votes aid the process? If you do not know who I am and you are arguably one of the most concerned students, what function does the announcement, “Craig Robinson votes NAY on IP Speaker Event” serve for anyone else? Furthermore, how much background on each vote do you think is reasonable appropriate? For example, “Craig Robinson voted NAY on IP speaker event” ought to require the supplementary information that your group had arranged no speaker nor set any date for the event. It ought also to include that your request for funds was in direct violation of established SBA budget guidelines for reasons I have already stated above. With twenty-six groups planning roughly four events per group per semester, review of the SBA budget report you propose would be too voluminous for anyone but those with excessive amounts of free time to read. If representatives of student groups do not bother to read a three-page budget guideline, is it reasonable to expect students to review individual votes over the spectrum of twenty-six groups? Is this truly the manner in which we desire SBA to apply its resources? Is it reasonable to charge multiple SBA members with the duty of compiling a comprehensive review of the budget meeting and all subsequent votes? With new votes being required over the course of the semester, would the student body really benefit from constant detailed minutes via e-mail? When is enough enough?

Finally, you speak to open communication. I direct your attention to http://www.busba.org/ which functions as the SBA website for BUSL. You will see that there is a forums section where any student has the opportunity to post suggestions, comments, criticisms, etc. I fail to see how an attack on the SBA posted to your personal blog is an appropriate means of discourse when you fail to take advantage of resources created for just the communication you protest about. I also fail to see how asserting that votes against your group stemmed from vendettas against you personally serves any worthwhile purpose whatsoever.

- Craig Robinson

I thought this post was pretty ho-hum, but Craig’s righteous and self-important banter can’t help but provoke a comment. Craig, central among your arguments are three thought-restricting themes:

1. If you aren’t part of the SBA, then you don’t have grounds to levy a complaint
2. Posting your opinions in a blog in inappropriate if there are other venues to do so
3. Transparency is needless since you don’t know each of the members of the SBA

These themes are plain in comments such as “I fail to see how an attack on the SBA posted to your personal blog is an appropriate means of discourse” or “the most appropriate response is not to make allegations of personal vendettas...[i]nstead, perhaps you personally should run for office”.

Exactly why is it wrong for someone to express their views concerning the operations on the SBA on a personal blog? Exactly why should persons not elected to the SBA keep their opinions to themselves unless they are elected? What exactly is the reason why you are so opposed to someone expressing their opinion? This strange opposition to the mere expression of an opinion seems quite in step with Cathy’s comments regarding a more transparent operation of the SBA. I also find it grating as it seems to be popular fancy these days to be critical of people simply because they expressed themselves in a MANNER not to one’s liking.

It seems to me that when a student cares enough to express a thoughtful opinion, the mere expression of that opinion should command a basic level of respect. Instead you seem to focus on stating that that Cathy’s comments were childish and inappropriate because she isn’t an elected member nor were her comments levied in the “proper” forum. The next time I want to be critical of an organization can I email you to find out where and how I should express myself?

You seem to imply that if I’m not an elected member of this body then I don’t really have any position to levy criticism – that’s like saying if I’m not a member of Congress I can’t comment how Congress runs. Ultimately, by preaching only a narrow forum whereby comments and criticism may be expressed, you tend to reinforce Cathy’s point.

My $0.02

Dixiechick,

As a quick aside before I speak to your argument, it is my opinion that a truly open forum where opinions and views are most effectively flushed out and discussed loses value when people speak under unanimous aliases. If one cannot speak as themselves, I often wonder about the strength of their convictions. However, to each their own. Regarding your response, I would like to respond to each of your comments in turn so that you will better understand my opinion:

1. “If you aren’t part of the SBA, then you don’t have grounds to levy a complaint.”
I am unclear where you garnered this impression from my comments. In fact, I think have emphasized at every juncture that there are multiple ways to levy a complaint ranging from the busba.org forum where anonymity can be upheld to actually speaking to individuals both in and out of the SBA office to any of the ways in between. The SBA is an elected body where the representatives and board members speak on behalf of the student body. Complaints, comments, and advice are the foundation from which the SBA focuses events, decides on group funding, etc. Perhaps your confusion stems from my view that a personal blog is an ineffective means of levying a complaint when the objective is change.

2. “Posting your opinions in a blog is inappropriate if there are other venues to do so.”
While I cannot claim to be blog-savvy by any means, it is my understanding that blogs exist for people to express their views and opinions. Based on that, the posting of opinions on a blog could never be inappropriate. What Cathy chooses to post on her blog is totally within her discretion though it may provoke a response. Is not that why blog pieces have a “comment” option? However, Cathy’s piece calls for a change which could only arise if SBA is aware of her complaint. My argument was not anti-blog to any degree. Instead, I believe her complaint could have been better addressed in a forum (such as the busba.org forum) where SBA awareness is assured.

3. Transparency is needless since you don’t know each of the members of the SBA
I completely see Cathy’s argument for transparency and sympathize with her concerns. In a perfect world, we would all have the time to prepare the manner of voting reports she calls for and every student would have the time and energy to review each individual’s votes before deciding on whether to re-elect. I do not believe I ever took the stance that transparency was “needless” but instead impractical considering other time commitments. As for familiarization with SBA members, my point was merely that students like Cathy who are concerned with transparency issues could expend minimal effort to achieve better knowledge of individual votes regarding their student group.

A few last points: I find it fascinating to hear other people’s opinions. I think that if I were opposed to such, I never would have entered law school in the first place. However, every opinion offered runs the risk of opposition from competing views. I value and respect most of Cathy’s opinion to the utmost and if others rally behind it then perhaps change is called for. I will admit to calling some of Cathy’s comments childish and inappropriate however. It is my personal opinion that implying certain votes against her where personally motivated was inappropriate and did little to further her argument (other than perhaps provoke an emotionally charged response). While her comments may be general in nature to most, I am personally aware of the specific voting situation as well as the SBA member to whom she is referring. That SBA individual is mature enough to rise above any differences she and Cathy may have and vote in the best interest of the student body.

Finally, your post seems to imply that I cannot or should not personally comment on Cathy’s piece. I find it interesting that your response charges my comments as “thought-restricting” but then at many points chastises me for speaking my opinion on the subject. By doing so, you tend to undermine your own point.

- Craig

Cathy:

Since this appears to be the appropriate forum to vent ones gripes I though I would use this as the place to announce to the Student Body that I am the new SBA President.

Well now that that is out of the way I must address a couple of your more perplexing allegations.

Lack of Transparency: I find it laughable that you have decided to lament our lack of transparency. I beseech you to name me another organization that makes all of its budgetary decision in front of the requesting party. All of our questions, our discussion and our voting is done out in the open and in front of the group requesting funds. While I am sure that a spreadsheet of 131 budget line items and the corresponding voting of each of the 15 members of the SBA would be a hot seller you must understand that it would belabor an already arduous budget process. A budget meeting that should take no longer than one hour, given the SBA's promiscuous distribution of funds to student groups ends up taking three or four times as long. Why you ask? Because the student groups rarely take the time to read the budget guidelines that the SBA has taken tens of hours to carefully draft. It is not uncommon for the SBA to receive a budget request in the following form:
"Our group would like $800 to bring in a speaker. "
"Can you tell us a little more about the event"
"No, we have not decided who, what, when, or where to have this event yet."

If you have a suggestion to help the SBA ensure that student groups follow the budget guidelines pleas let us know. I breathlessly await.

The SBA's lack of "communicating . . . openly": You have derided the SBA's communication. Suggesting that it is secretive and closed off to outside influence. Yet you made this capricious suggestion without full disclosure of your own. If I am correct you made this post mere hours after Sid Bale (and SBA representative) and I took two hours in the middle of the day on Wednesday to meet with you about your concerns. Our impression of the meeting was that we had made some progress in addressing the concerns of a student willing to bring their issues to us. Why didn't you tell your loyal readership about our two hour meeting? Instead we are given "the situation cannot stand". The SBA office has its door open more than 30 hours a week. And remember this is a volunteer organization, we take our jobs very seriously and spend most of our free time working to make this school a better place. Between meeting with you, and two of your fellow group members for two hours, an exercise that was evidently fruitless since you turned around and decried our refusal to listen, and being open for any student concern five days a week I fail to see what your gripe is.

Next time you want to nitpick at a group that spends hundreds of individual hours every month please have the courtesy to do it face to face. At this point why would I or anyone else on the SBA take time out of our schedules to discuss your concerns? As for Dixiechick the proper form to air ones grievances is face to face, honestly and openly, like we all did on Wednesday, well at least like a couple of us did. I hope that when you "do something about it" as you intend it might be through more forthright channels, why burn any more bridges?

--Dylan Hale

Dylan, Craig:

First I want to apologize for any offense inadvertently given. I emphasize inadvertent because I don't believe anything I posted constitutes a personal attack, but given the timing I can see why you might have inferred it to be.

The impact of the meeting was merely thus: with the presidency change having not been announced, and with there not being individual vote records, I thought they were simply the result of a breakdown of communication, which was what the meeting was intending to improve. I will acknowledge, also, that while I still think the SBA should have been more forthcoming about the officer change it didn't necessarily have a good forum for doing it. (I doubt my blog would really count as one either.)

But in the course of the meeting I came to find out that it was not a breakdown of communication that led to these information gaps but specific policy. The meeting was the meeting, a separate project dedicated to improving communication in the school. I am committed to helping drive these improvements, including those that you suggested.

As a separate matter, however, I was deeply concerned with the policies expressed. I felt so strongly about it that I resolved to put changing them on my list of things to do, perhaps by submitting a formal proposal, I don't currently know what the best course would be. But I wrote explicitly that I planned to take some productive action.

In the meantime, I also chose to blog my concerns. Without going into all the reasons for why I blog, I blog to tell the story of what it is like being in law school. What kinds of issues I confront, what I think about them, what I do about them. Especially when they dovetail with issues I've already been digesting.

While I couldn't presume that my blog wouldn't ever be seen, I certainly didn't expect it to receive the visibility and reaction that it did. I don't say that as an excuse, that if only I'd known people would see it I wouldn't have posted. I say it only to reiterate the point that I didn't choose to blog instead of taking appropriate formal action.

That said, since you already know my concerns, perhaps you can recommend proper procedure to float a proposal to change the policies. That is my goal, and my post was made to simply discuss why I think it's a worthy one.

All that said, I resent the insinuation that my post was driven by a personal vendetta. There is nothing in the text, nor anything in my heart or mind, to support that assertion. I made it clear that my group received its requested money; that I harbored no personal animosity towards anyone who voted against us (or anyone at all, for that matter); and that my concern was manifested entirely in the process. On the other hand, certain comments suggest that because of my post others on the SBA might have a personal vendetta against me. I can’t imagine, however, that anyone on the SBA might sacrifice their professionalism or dedication to the greater good to descend to such a level. We are all considering what is best for our school. As it happens, you now know some of my thoughts on what that might require.

Furthermore, this issue has nothing to do with my group. I’ve resisted going into more specifics about its budget issues because I’ve not wanted to get sidetracked by those details, nor did any of my concerns result from a suspicion that any votes against my group’s budget stemmed from any sort of personal animus, as has been incorrectly surmised by some commenters. I had merely raised the budgetary experience as an example where vote accountability would help protect students’ interests.

A quick note about anonymity: I respect Craig’s point about coming face-to-face with your accuser, meaning that it’s easy to poke at another while camouflaged. However, I also want to say that a) I appreciated DixieChick’s support (whoever you are, I have no idea) and b) I also respect posters’ rights to be anonymous. Writing what I wrote under my name, as we can all see, ran huge risks. I can’t require others to take on the same. And perhaps, when cloaked by anonymity, people may be able to provide more candor and clarity than they otherwise might if known.

On the other hand, the first comment did rub me wrong because while the person knew who I was, I didn’t get to know who he was. When the attacks are more personal, I think Craig’s point is more valid. The difference between the first comment and DixieChick’s was that the former brought in details that only someone who knows me in real life would know, whereas DixieChick’s post regarded ideas put forth only within the bounds of the discussion.

I'm old, and I'm not quite sure what a blog is or how it works, so forgive me for any user etiquette errors. I normally wouldn't take the time to peruse, and certainly respond to posts such as this, but I'm a bit irritated at the attacks on my friends and fellow officers. For better or worse, here are thoughts from Strang.

First, lets be honest, it is personal. Several people voted no to your group's proposal, and for various legitimate reasons. You singled out one, and questioned her "political judgment." This strikes me as odd, as you didn't inquire as to her reason for voting no. Rather than belittling her, damning the organization, and calling for an overhaul of the system, why not simply ask why? I'm pretty sure she would tell you. After giving it some rational thought, you might even respect her decision. You might even spare yourself from future carpal tunnel problems caused by excessive typing.

I voted no too. I'll tell you why, for all the world to see. You had no proposal. You simply asked for money. No speaker was booked, no date was planned, no arrangement whatsoever was made. Voting yes locks in that amount of money into your organization's budget, meaning it can't be spent for the student body as a whole if you don't follow through. And you didn't use the money you were allotted last semester. Maybe I'm not nice, but if we just gave out money for asking, the students would be far worse off than you suggest they currently are.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not attacking either you or the organization you represented. If you came with more concrete plans I would have not only voted affirmatively, I would have attended the event myself. I have standards that I use for voting, and I'm happy to discuss that in more detail at your request.

You suggest that votes should be recorded. Virtually universal practice, as well as standard parliamentary procedure, involves recording a vote tally only. At any meeting one can request a roll call vote, as you could have here, where specific votes will be listed with the corresponding names. I wouldn't be surprised if you had not been aware of such a procedure, most people not familiar with these types of meetings are not. But if you were concerned about it, again you could have simply asked. We can't take the time to educate every guest of all parliamentary procedures, but we are more than happy to respond to questions.

As for transparency, I don't know how much more transparent an organization can be than to have an office in the lobby of a building, with the door open virtually all of the time, while including each officer's name on the door. Its a very welcoming place, actually, if you don't mind ugly couches and old books for atmosphere. As a matter of fact, I personally have a sign on the door inviting students to come see me with complaints and suggestions, etc., during "coffee hour with Strang." How much more transparent can we get without the luxury of having our own TV station broadcasting our every move? If you have suggestions for making us more visible to the student body, I welcome them. I would love to be able to have every student aware of what we do.

I also take issue with you questioning the way we are elected, dubbing the process a "popularity contest." That is really a criticism of each individual voter, and not of those of us who were elected. But something tells me these 500 or so law students who voted for us aren't idiots. They may have actually asked us things, and/or voted based on how they think we can do the job. Once again, you would have to ask them. But I assure you, its not some clique. I didn't even know most of the people on SBA when I ran. It was just dumb luck that it turns out I like them.

I'm a reasonable man, tolerant of even ignorant views. But I really find this to be an excessive reaction to a vote that went in your favor, but wasn't quite unanimous. If you are really concerned with the process than you shouldn't be attacking one person for how she voted without knowing why, and without noticing the other dissenting votes. And you shouldn't be dismissive of Craig Robinson's thoughtful comments. He's an intelligent and hard working advocote for all students, attempting to inform you of a more productive technique for communicating with our office.

Certainly you have a right to post whatever you choose on your website. But if you really are concerned with the make up and operation of the SBA, then we have collectively offered you several avenues to pursue the changes you desire. I personally welcome you to attend my office hours, or to make a personal appointment to meet with you at a more convenient time to address your concerns. I see that Dylan and Sid have already done so, and I'm sure any of my other fellow officers would do the same.

Respectfully,
Christopher D. Strang
SBA Vice President

While I appreciate your taking the time to make comments, this whole thing has gotten way out of hand. And it has done so because people seem to want to read into my post things that aren't there. I do not want to continue to abet this tilting at these imaginary windmills. Time permitting I would be willing to continue substantive discussions on the merits of my argument regarding the need for transparency in governing bodies, either in general or even specific to the SBA, but further accusations about my motivations or intentions or other subjective criteria will not be entertained. I believe I've made myself sufficiently clear on those points several times already.

Nor do I wish to discuss the specifics of my group's budget proposal here. As an aside, however, I think there are elements to the budgetary process that make it difficult for both the SBA and student group leaders. It may be worth discussing them at some point to make it more workable for all involved. But not in this thread.

Blog postings are a bit like fine art. What's important isn't what you mean to say. What matters is what people perceive your words to be saying.

If many people perceive your posts to have the same meaning, perhaps you should look to see how your post could convey the meaning, rather than going back to your subjective intent and insisting folks are tilting at windmills.

Blogging is a tough thing, because it puts your words in the public view, and, once there, it is tough to take the words back or interpret them.

Don Quixote references? I think perhaps you take yourself a bit too seriously.

Considering the amount of time spent discussing the votes of a particular individual in your original blog, you can see how we might view that as a central thrust of your argument, and in some sense a personal attack. However, you have indicated that is not the case. I know you in name only, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt and take you at your word.

You mentioned that you would like to pursue further debate on the merits of your transparency in government theories. I welcome that debate. You have opened the door to it, and I and others posting herein are in a position to influence productive changes. You have my attention, please continue.

Your first idea of recording how officers vote on each matter has already been addressed as administratively difficult and time consuming. It would also be useless information without including the merits of the proposal, the reasons each person had for voting the way they did, etc. Without that, we have situations like we did here, where you make assumptions about why people voted the way they did rather than evaluate based on facts. That is neither fair to the person who voted, nor does it really give any true insight into the leader they are selecting.

For example, without knowing more I might interpret your recent vote to protest military recruiting on campus as an expression of anti-American sentiment rather than as support for equal rights. There's really quite a lot more to it than putting a name next to a "yay" or "nay".

The SBA deals with transparency by having each of our members hold office hours every single week. Those hours are posted on our door. Every student is welcomed and encouraged to visit, ask questions, and make comments to any of us and for any reason. We feel that face to face communication is the most effective way to avoid confusion. As you have recently learned, posting views on websites can be a bit less helpful to the resolution of concerns and controversies.

So, the ball is in your court. I'll check the site for your new suggestions, or look forward to seeing you during office hours for more in depth discussion.

Thank you,
Chris Strang

Thanks, Chris. Some thoughts in response:

It's a fair point that maybe if I had talked to the person who had twice voted against my budget I might have discovered that she had very good reasons for it, reasons that I might have even agreed with. But my point is that it was only by sheer coincidence that I had any idea whom to follow-up with at all, for any reason. As it was I had no idea that you (or Craig) were also someone I should speak with, because either I didn't see your vote, or if I did, I didn't recognize who you were.

In the context of the budget meeting, while I recognize that the SBA faces certain logistical difficulties in recording all the votes, those difficulties are nothing compared to the difficulties student group leaders face in trying to ascertain and record the same information. Further, I don't really see it as being all that difficult for the SBA to do: assuming you take attendance, you only need to take down on the fly the names behind the minority votes and abstentions. Normally I suspect that would only amount to a few names, but in instances with a tighter vote count, those are exactly the situations when students would later want to know who voted for what.

As it stands, I don't actually believe, despite what some of you have thought, that anyone on the SBA is voting capriciously or maliciously. But without the voting records students have no way to know for sure. What if certain SBA members only vote for their friends' budgets? What if certain SBA members refuse to vote for groups they disagree with? These are questions that the students should be able to have easily answered, but without an official record detailing the votes it isn't possible.

And I mean all students, not just group leaders. Only a few people are in the room during the meeting, but others in the school have a vested interest in the outcome and should be able to depend on a reliable record of what they missed. The resources being allocated belong to all of us, and we all should be able to review how individual members have chosen to expend them.

In fact, this review ability should be available for any situation where the SBA makes decisions on our behalf, not just the student group budget meetings. These could be general SBA budget meetings or instances when the SBA is weighing in on school policy or administration matters. By recording votes only in aggregate, students are forced to evaluate the SBA as an entire bloc, devoid of any nuance for differing views among its many members. But since we elect SBA members individually, we really need to be able to know whom to hold accountable if we don't feel the decision was made in our interest.

Under the current policy, by the time the election rolls around, we are left with a very uninformed choice. If we generally like what the SBA did, we can vote for the incumbent and *hope* that he or she was instrumental in positively affecting SBA matters. Of course, for all we know this person might have voted down every proposal! With information we can make a much better choice. For instance, if candidate A often voted in a way inconsistent with my interests, but candidate B didn't, it makes sense for me to vote for candidate B. But without this information I might end up voting for candidate A. Or let me rephrase the situation more positively: I will have no basis by which to reward candidate B with my vote, since I have no means to know that I would want to.

Cathy,

Unfortunately I have to disagree with most of things you said. And I'm a little disapointed with your narrow viewpoint, and I'll explain why.

First, it wouldn't be a big deal to record individual votes, if we were voting on a handful of things. We have about 30 organizations requesting money at a budget meeting, many with multi-part proposals. Adding just two minutes on to each group's time for recording votes amounts to an hour total additional time. Thats an hour on top of a meeting that already lasts several hours. Then you have to consider there are 15 SBA members, costing us a total of 15 hours of collective time that could be used for other things. It really is asking a lot.

However, if I felt it were worth it, I would certainly back the change, for the good of the student body. But lets do a little cost/benefit analysis. We have our 15 hours of sba "time" as the cost.

I'm going to need a little help on the benefit side. You allege that it will be used by students to make a more informed vote during the sba elections. This is in spite of my previous argument about all of the background information needed to properly evaluate a vote. All that aside, I just simply don't believe it. I really can't envision any meaningful portion of our student body standing at the ballot box with a ballot in one hand and the minutes from the last SBA budget meeting in the other. They really care a lot more about other things, and rightfully so.

Who is going to go further and ask who all the rep's friends are to see if he/she is voting yes to only friends' proposals. I personally have friends in virtually every organization, as most of us do, and would be little more than a rubber stamp in an old man's body if I voted for their every wish.

Most importantly, how can you assert your desire to be a more informed voter when you didn't even know, for example, that Craig Robinson was one of your 2L reps. He has been a class rep since he started law school. He is in the SBA office every day. He is at every single event, often at the front door greeting people as they arrive. Almost every other 2L knows him as one of the most dedicated sba officers. How can you assure me that you'll make use of this voting information when you haven't taken the minimal effort to find out your current representative's name during the course of a year.

Why aren't you concerned with the plethora of other important things the SBA does? How about leadership qualities? You can't learn about that from paper.

I've been to LSA meetings, and I read the minutes. I don't agree with everything the 3L members say, or how they vote. But I would vote for Alex, Sarah, Colin and Miriam because I have taken the time to get to know them and feel they are good leaders who care about the needs of students. When there is an issue of importance to me on the table in there, I go and talk to them about it. I couldn't tell you who voted yes and no on various things at the SBA budget meeting, but I guarantee it wouldn't change my opinion of their performance as an officer. There are too many other things that matter more.

What you're basically doing is asking me to work harder for issues that matter to you, without being willing to look past your own interests. Make the effort to understand what the SBA is, how we function, and who we are before you criticize. I assure you, your suggestions for change can be presented for feasible implementation much more easily when you have a basic familiarity with the foundation.

Thats all for tonight,
Strang

We all know that the SBA doesn't take itself seriously (unless it involves drink tickets) so why start now?

Dear zzzzzzzzzz:

I can certainly understand how people who aren't involved with anything on campus and only come out for drinking events might assume that such things are the sole purpose of the SBA. And that is fine. We are here to serve the student body, including the ones only interested in such things. Social activity is indeed a large part of what we plan.

If, however, you are interested in learning in more detail about other facets of the SBA, I invite you to my coffee hour on Fridays to discuss it. Assuming that you are more likely interested in hiding behind your anonymous hurling of insults on the internet, I shall not waste my time with a full response here. You know where to find me should you develop a sincere interest in a meaningful discussion.

Thanks,
Chris Strang

What I'm hearing you say is that in the context of the SBA, it's neither practical nor necessary to record the individual votes. I would have to question that assessment: while for routine matters the cost/benefit analysis might not necessarily weigh *heavily* in its favor, I think it still does to a significant degree. And there's also the larger concern relating to matters that are more contentious. As it is there's already competition for scarce resources. If there weren't, the SBA wouldn't need to vote at all and could simply dole out the requested money outright. But because judgment is involved in making the allocations, that judgment should be reviewable. Since that judgment comes in the form of individual (and individually-elected) representatives' votes, they are what needs to be reviewable.

This mandate doesn’t just apply to the SBA; it's incumbent on ANY democratically-elected governing body to be so reviewable. We would be discontent as citizens if we allowed Congress to vote on a law and get back to us, "Yeah, it was 202-123. Here's your law." We need the individual representative accountability in order to ensure that the body at large is doing what we want it to. Would we ever be so complacent to accept Congress to say, "Trust us; collectively, Congress will take care of everything..."? I would certainly hope not (and would speak out on it if we did). But that's what the student body is required to do with respect to the SBA.

This isn't to say that there's anything wrong with the current incarnation of the SBA. Its current members may be perfectly deserving of that trust, and they may be exercising their collective power justly. But lucky for us, because there's no sufficient safeguard to make sure that's the case, or that it remains so. We have no idea who will be in your seats in three, four, five... years from now. We have no idea what sort of issues the SBA will need to contend with, or how deserving those representatives will be of this sort of blind trust. Without a policy that provides for the utmost transparency, students, present and future, are at the mercy of the SBA's collective authority to act in any way it chooses without needing to be accountable as individuals to the students who had granted them that power to act. Like any governing body, once it has power, the SBA is free to run roughshod over its constituency's interests if that constituency does not have some leverage to wield over its members. Without full voting transparency, students don't.

While you can argue that students likely won't look at the voting records, it's a vastly different thing to say "they won't," than "they can't." No government can operate legitimately with the latter being the case. Since it derives its power from our sanction, there always needs to be the threat of its withdrawal. It's that threat, more than its actual exercise, which provides the sufficient check and balance on the government. But if we don't know who is doing what electorally, as we currently don't, we can't effectively deny (or grant) any member's power. The SBA becomes a black box to students, whose internal operations we can't see. (If you wonder why students aren't more engaged, this may help explain why). Representatives can operate with relative impunity, because they know that students will not be able to hold them accountable for their choices. Transparency is about making sure that students have this checking power available to them, whenever and however they might choose to wield it. To the extent that it's necessary and desireable to have a student-elected body in change of certain school functions, such transparency is absolutely necessary to achieve that promise. Otherwise there's really no point in having a representative government at all.

Cathy...

While I agree with you that acountability in government is very important, I don't think its either fair or useful to require that every quasi-governmental body maintain transparancy in exactly the same manner.

In other words, I think that what might be a foundational accountability measure for a federal government could be overkill and a silly administrative burden for a law school student government.

Law School student governments are made up of volunteers, consist of people who are generally known to the constituants, control relatively little "public" money (ie fee revenues), have no power to compel constituants (ie students) to do things, and have only an advisory voice and only on certain realatively non-earth shattering issues. These factors tend to shift the balance away from formalistic and burdonsome accountability measures and towards informality.

Thus, I think that an open door policy leads to far more accountability and respondsiveness (call it direct democracy) than a formal vote record which no one is likely to read (let alone is likely to read while casting their votes).

I think it's inflexible to insist that a vote record is an absolute requirement for accountability. My experience is that bodies like student governments tend to essentially work by consensus-- and this works fine.

Mark
Mark

Cathy,

First, I agree with and adopt everything that Mark just said. I have no idea who he is, but he seems like a pretty smart guy. I would just like to add a few brief points.

The question is not whether to be transparent in governing, it is in what way and to what degree. I've worked with organizations that have closed door meetings for discussions, and only provide a yes or no answer to proposals. On the other hand, we can watch government at work on CSPAN.

The SBA takes measures, as discussed, to allow for transparency. We could record votes as well. We could also videotape our meetings and play them in the lounge for all to see, have our members write position papers on each issue before us, or webcast the meetings in real time. There are countless measures, each with varying degrees of feasibility and usefulness. We have attempted to strike a balance based on what we believe the students desire, and what we are capable of providing without making the task of serving on the SBA so unpleasant that no one will want to do it. We're not perfect, but all in all I think things go pretty well.

If there was a lot of demand for change, we might feel compelled to comply. But, with all due respect, you are the first person who has ever mentioned that this is an issue in all my time as an officer. If you remain really concerned about the matter, there are two things I can suggest you do. One, talk to the candidates who run for office for next year, and vote for the ones who will support your proposed change. Or two, run for office and attempt to implement your government in the sunshine initiative in the coming year. Reasonable people can disagree about how things should be handled, as evidenced by the current discussion. I think we've exhausted most of the arguments without persuading each other very much.

Thank you,
Chris Strang