Be afraid, the new ASM constitution is coming to get you.
As those in charge of the Vote No Campaign against the new constitution would have you believe, the proposed ASM constitution to be voted on this Monday and Tuesday will be nothing short of cataclysmic. The new executive branch it creates will lead to dictatorial ASM presidents slashing budgets left and right, leaving student organizations stranded without funding and ASM's legislative wing powerless to fight back. There will be no place to hide from this new devilry. But this overly paranoid image is far from reality. In fact, it might just be what ASM needs to emerge from irrelevancy.
More than anything else, what raises the ire of the Vote No coalition is the brand new executive branch the constitution creates. They fear that too much power will be invested in the position of the president, the executive will not have enough checks and balances in the legislative branch and the president will be too easy to influence. Basically, they think the constitution is inviting a collegiate mini-Blagojevich to take control and wreak havoc. However, there are plenty of checks in place to make sure that does not happen.
Under the constitution, the president will have veto power over the budget and legislation. That budget is singular—the president will not be able to veto the budgets of individual groups, only the budget for the entirety of GSSF organizations, so fears that the executive branch will be able to slash funding to whomever they wish are unfounded. And should a vetoed budget have overwhelming support, the senate can overturn the veto with a simple two-thirds majority. This is the same majority required to impeach a president. The two-thirds majority is not a high threshold and seems like an entirely reasonable requirement, a level that could easily be reached should an obviously corrupt or out-of-touch president come into power.
Yet another claim against the constitution is that it will ruin ASM's ""grassroots"" efforts on behalf of students, with the executive branch centralizing the whole process. But under the new constitution, all the grassroots committees will still exist and remain independent of the executive. The only difference will be that they will need to gain approval from the senate for their activities.
But how does this new executive branch really help ASM? Another complaint of the Vote No Campaign is that the executive branch won't help ASM to better fight for students, which was one of ASM's original intended goals. Admittedly, this is where a leap of faith must be made. The idea behind the president is that the students of UW will now have a leader of ASM they themselves can vote into office and hold accountable—unlike the current chair of ASM. Hopefully, this will lead to more active leadership in ASM.
But if the president just turns into a new ASM chair in a fancy new dress, all the position will do is create even more gridlock in an organization that already accomplishes next to nothing. The veto process could end up simply prolonging the budgetary process, a process that already takes a great deal of time and effort on the part of ASM members and the groups whose funding they control. In effect, the new ASM president could just result in more stagnation.
But as of now, ASM simply does not work. Stagnation is already so high that a little more likely wouldn't make a difference. What the new constitution offers is a chance to change things up. If it works, the campus will finally have a practical governing body. If it doesn't, things basically stay where we are now. Those are not bad odds.
So in those 30 seconds or so it takes to vote online, just chase that Brothers Grimm fairy tale crafted by the Vote No Campaign out of your mind. The ASM constitution is far from the monster it has been portrayed as. The new constitution will finally give the students of UW-Madison a leader that can be a driving force behind action. Give it a chance and maybe, just maybe, UW-Madison students will finally know what real representation feels like.
Todd Stevens is a sophomore majoring in history and psychology. We welcome your feedback. Please send responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
