SGA Elections

This is an issue concerning mainly St Cloud State students, but after all, this is the SCSU Libertarian's Club Blog. Long story short, the Student Government is running elections in this month of April. While there are three candidates, the two major candidates are Travis Holmberg and Michael Jamnick, who differ on a lot of issues important to the St Cloud State community.

On one side, Jamnick and his Vice-President pick Sam Sterner advocate the abolition of "double jeopardy" situations, where offenses committed off-campus result in additionnal sanctioning with the University. Jamnick and Sterner claim they will "work to lessen the financial and legal implications." Jamnick claims in his platform that he will work to lower the drinking age, as a recent survey shows that St Cloud State students are in favor of the idea. In my opinion, there are low chances that this will ever happen, but in this kind of debate, silence is consent, and St Cloud State students do not consent to the drinking age being 21. Among the other issues on the platform, supporting legislation that enables availability of contraceptives, making it easier for Student Veterans to obtain Military Transfer Credits, and keeping the Night Bus, in opposition to the proposition of having a Taxi system, requiring more money from students and not guaranteeing instant availability.

On the other, we have Travis Holmberg and Birat Krishna Thapa, running together for President and Vice-President, respectively. Their platform is separated into five points. The main element of their platform and campaign as a whole is to increase pride in the University from the student body, their motto being "Bringing back the Husky Pride!" They seek to do this through making more events that celebrate the traditions of St Cloud and SCSU, and seek to measure the pride through polls and surveys. The second point of their platform is to "work more closely" with the administration and "various other organizations". The third point is to bring the Student Government Association "more fame" by increasing public relations. Their fourth point is to "help out the organizations with their financial needs", and their final point is to raise awareness about the SGA.

Now I've been pretty neutral so far, and this is where my opinion comes in place.

While Jamnick's platform isn't perfect (no platform ever is), Holmberg's and Thapa's has some serious flaws. First of all, it appears that the platform hasn't even gone through proofreading. For example, simple arithmetic is erroneous : " the top four on our list would be the Residential Life, University Program Board and Public Safety." That's three, not four. The positions are not all declared on the platform, which I find difficult for the transparency of the election. For example, while Holmberg/Thapa omit the issue of the Night Bus vs. the Taxi System in their official platform, Holmberg announced in a public debate to which no more than 25 people were present that their position was that of the Taxi System. If only 25 people out of 16 000 know what your position on the issue is, they might be voting for the wrong reason.

But hey, that's more a criticism on form rather than content. On the content of the platform, I will simply say that the positions are broad and vague. The candidates claim that "they will work with" administration, other organizations, and MSUSA, but do not explain in what way they will work with them. They claim that they "will extend a hand to help out the organizations with their financial needs," but again, don't describe in which fashion. Will they favorise certain organizations more than others? They fail to explain that to us. Their points are also quite redundant, points 3 and 5 being almost exactly the same. They claimed in their debate that they wanted to remove the University's party school reputation, which is something most serious students seek to do, but fail to explain how they will achieve that.

But what's even worse is their reaction to questions asked on their platform thread. Several students have expressed their discontentment regarding the vagueness of the platform, and questions have been asked, one student asking them to go more in depth. Thapa gave long, wordy answers to simple questions, and seemed to be avoiding the actual content of the questions. A student has asked him three consecutive times : "Should people who are present in a room where alcohol is being consumed be sanctioned even though they have not taken part in the consumption of alcohol?" No answer. Instead, long paragraphs describing their position to reduce hate crime and violent crimes on campus. We all want to reduce violent crimes, this doesn't answer the question.



(Left : Holmberg/Thapa ; Right : Jamnick/Sterner)
On April 6th, a student raised questions on various University issues, and kept his discourse formal and polite. By the next day, Thapa had marked the post as "irrelevant," making it hidden by default on the page. This is the equivalent of political censorship. When confronted by one of his personal friends on the issue, he canceled this action, but claimed he did this because he doesn't "see any reason why people should not understand what [he and Holmberg] are trying to say." Since that day, Thapa deleted three additional posts. When that student made a new post to ask additional questions and repeat unanswered ones, this was Thapa's response :

I have had enough of you, if you are in International Student I guess please tell your TOEFL or IELTS Score, you just fail to understand simple english [sic] or maybe you are not reading my post and being an ardent worshipper of JamSam.

This comes from the same person that said "I would love to answer more [questions]," "Please continue posting," and "I strongly urge you to write more if you are not satisfied with my answer." Another part of his response included the line "I am confident that I will win this election no matter what." Why, that's constructive! Why in the world are you making slogans such as "Change is coming!" and putting posters all over campus, practically begging for votes, if you know you are going to win this election?

When the Presidential candidate, Travis Holmberg, got involved on the question asked multiple times and yet remaining unanswered, he did not give his position on the issue. Rather, he asked the student what his position was, and whether or not it should be changed. He went further to say he will meet with the students "when I am President" to discuss policy. Again, no doubt what so ever that he will win this election, and an apparent apathy about some of the policies in place affecting all students living on campus.

So to summarize why I think you should NOT vote for Travis Holmberg and Birat K Thapa : a) they have an extremely vague platform, b) they practice active censorship, c) they refuse to answer questions, rather using their ink to assume bad faith about people interested in their platform.

Moral of the story is : Look beyond hopeful slogans, look into attitude and positions.