The $48,000 Question

And the recall is on.

One of the most impressive – even miraculous – aspects of American government is that it has managed to survive on a Constitution that has only been amended 27 times since 1788, particularly, I would argue, since the world has changed more in the past 220 years than in any other 220 years in world history. While it’s hardly surprising that the ASUC’s Constitution was drafted with considerably less foresight than that of our national government, it is nonetheless disappointing that since it “merely requires a recall petition to include a ‘specific statement of reasons,’ not ‘specific facts’ or ‘specific reasons’ in order to initiate a recall election,” we are potentially set to remove a man from office for no reason and at a reported price of $48,000 – or exactly what the average American earns before taxes for 1.5 years of work.

I suppose that’s what you get for having your founding legal document written by a cadre of inbred marmosets strung out on PCP, instead of an elite council of highly educated geniuses.

As mentioned in the Direct Judgment, “[the assenting three] agree with Senator Moghtader that the reasons cited in the petition against him seem overly vague. However, we are not ruling on their veracity, and they nonetheless constitute a specific statement of reasons, which is all that the ASUC Constitution requires.” The Panel may come to regret these words; I feel the floodgates might have just been thrown open. I myself now plan to initiate recall petitions against Mary June Gascon Flores for having more names than me and Oscar Mairena for being shorter than me. Hell, I presume there are hordes of kids on campus just dying to throw their parents’ money away. They’d just blow it on mortgage payments and food, anyway.

I stand wholeheartedly in support of Senator Moghtader in this Dreyfussian Affair. I know the man, respect his intelligence, and admire his forthrightness; his removal from office would not be a miscarriage of justice so much as a mockery of it. I also firmly believe that almost no instance could justify the horrific expenditure involved in recalling a Senator from a ruling body that is, in reality, so wholly inconsequential. Yet there’s a part of me that wouldn’t mind if this ended up going as its instigators had planned: this could prove once and for all that the ASUC Senate is not and has never been the proper arena for promoting improvement in Berkeley. If, in the end, that's the lesson we have to bring away from all of this, we could do a lot worse.

That said, don’t be an idiot. Make sure to vote on Monday whenever the election finally takes place, and to say no to this ridiculous witch hunt.