COLUMN: Penn's return to party politics?

From Mike Madden's, "Opiate of the Masses," Fall '98 From Mike Madden's, "Opiate of the Masses," Fall '98 Last week's elections were big news on campus. For the first time in many years, a referendum drew more than 20 percent of the student body out to vote -- much more, in fact. Though 33 percent of eligible voters headed to the polls, the Nominations and Elections Committee invalidated the results without announcing them, citing illegal campaigning by one side. And now everybody's up in arms, each side accusing the other of ruining the referendum. The seeds of the current controversy were planted a few months ago, when the Undergraduate Assembly essentially put $30,000 of the student government budget at disposal of the InterFraternity Council -- without more than a vague notion that it would fund "alcohol-free, campus-wide social events." Not a bad idea, in the abstract. With the administration and the state police cracking down harder than ever on Greek-sponsored drinking -- and at the same time calling on fraternities to expand their social horizons beyond Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights -- the IFC has been in a bind lately. Not only can fraternities not legally charge for parties, but the administration is asking them to get involved in expensive new undertakings. The hitch was that any money the UA doesn't allocate in its annual budget goes to the Student Activities Council, which pays for everything from Generation XX to The Red and Blue, and a whole lot in between. So for the UA to add this new, large line item meant one thing to SAC: less money. Faced with the prospect of losing $30,000 they could spend on student groups, SAC members searched for ways to undo what the UA had done. And recent history obliged them. Last year, fraternity and sorority leaders pushed hard to elect a UA that was mostly Greek, all but admitting publicly that most of the motivation was to get new sources of funding so the new anti-drinking climate didn't ruin the large portion of campus social life that depends on the Greek system. This gave SAC leaders this year the perfect opportunity to portray the UA's $30,000 "discretionary fund" allocation as a giveaway to the Greeks, pulled off by a beer-swilling bunch of fraternity hoodlums who had taken over Penn's elected student government. We could have either plentiful parties or Penn Players, but not both, according to SAC's rhetoric. The referendum last week would have returned the $30,000 to what some people thought was its rightful owners: SAC. Or, if you believed the IFC contingent, it would have undermined the power of the elected government to help an already huge activities budget get even bigger. Both sides spun hard, and both sides did their best to make sure they won. Neither side really made a great effort to inform its members about the issues; they both just lobbied for as many votes as they could get. And with two of the largest student interest groups on campus (club members and Greeks) going head to head, of course turnout was higher than ever before. That doesn't make it a travesty that the NEC threw out the results, since the 33 percent participation is an inflated figure, not a sign of a rash of democracy at Penn. In reality, it seems things will work out. SAC has $350,000 that somehow went unmentioned in its heavy campaigning, and with a UA subsidy, the IFC will be able to put on new programs without closing fraternity parties off to non-Greeks. What's really interesting about this election is that it may be the harbinger of a return of political coalitions to Penn student government. The IFC and Panhellenic Council have shown that organized campaigns can elect a slate of voters, and SAC's effort on the referendum proved the IFC wasn't the only organization on campus that can motivate turnout. Now that groups have begun to vie for the UA's purse strings, personal interest could get more and more students involved in campus politics in general as they suddenly see a personal stake in the matter. Think about how much more vibrant student politics could be if different interest groups controlled blocs on the UA. Coalition government might produce much more creative proposals than the current form. And representatives and constituents alike would want the UA to accomplish something specific. So instead of decrying the factions that slugged it out last week,, be glad for the activism the election may inspire. Look past the charges and counter-charges of manipulative politics, and you just may see the groundwork for a whole new student government at Penn.