My first reaction to the Chronicle’s front page this past week was bewilderment, a ticket running unopposed for the Student Government Presidency? “Wowza,” I said. Then, I took a look at what has been going on all year in the student government and it all made a whole lot of sense. Even as a lay-man when talking about important (you know… real) politics, and even less informed when talking about the games of children that are played by students here, I saw a very interesting trend throughout the semester, so I did a little research.

The Student Government Senate, judging from my experiences as an outsider at their weekly meetings, is a body that is totally incapable of accomplishing anything real and tangible. They wrangle with pointless rules and debates that are rehashed over and over again.

One amendment, excoriated by this publication and by other students, is an amendment to remove restrictions on new media venues on campus. While the idea at one stage or another in its development may have met or passed by an iota of good faith, it has been debated by the senate, voted on by the senate and failed by the senate exactly three times.

Yet, tricks of procedure bring up the issue again and again; tricks of procedure continue to invalidate the failed outcome every time, presumably until the senate passes it and considering its author and the author’s dear friends, I will assume that it will in fact be brought up again and again until it is passed or until this year’s senate draws to a pointless close. Of course, that is a rather small instance of how students seek to pad their resume, or how an aspiring young politico gets experience in making backroom or bathroom deals.

A distinguished senator once said that the “The shady dealings have to go. The whole Matt Bisanz thing.” Not only do I take personal offense at the sucker punch to the sensibilities of a great American, but I also see this as part of the problem that needs fixing. The blindness to the shady dealings that take place in the Student Government office itself, far more important and far-reaching than some breach of a secret session, is the problem.

This year’s elections commission, a veritable dream team, looks to be stacked in the favor of the incumbent president from the start. The chair, vice-chair and siblings all were part of President DiSilvio’s election campaign. Yet another member of the commission is Matthew Bisanz, another former campaign manager from the DiSilvio campaign. This would have given the DiSilvio party in the commission a very strong bloc of four votes. Until the famed Bisanz-DiSilvio breach, after which it became apparent that the tenuously ordered control of the elections commission would break down to three, giving the opposition a chance to hold a fair election, an amendment was shoved through the senate, an amendment that took away the elections commission’s power to dictate the rules for the election, placing firmly in the buttery and forgetful hands of the senate.

Since the rules were already written, the senate felt no need to even consider them, it felt no need to debate the changes from last year’s fairly decent rules and against the advice of good hearted, freedom loving Americans everywhere, they were passed.

The new rules allow candidates to petition for signatures in the Student Government office, convenient for a person with an office inside it. The new rules allow campaigning on the election days, convenient again for somebody with an office on campus. The new rules allow clubs to contribute $1,000 of their budget to a candidate, convenient for a person with friends in the College Republicans and the Students for Life organizations, whose budgets are among the largest in the Student Government umbrella of organizations. I could go on and on, but I’m sure that my page-space is running out. So I ask that you carefully consider who you vote for this coming election. Carefully consider all of those choices that lie before you and choose the least corrupt ticket on the ballot, the DiSilvio campaign, which conveniently is the only choice that lies before you.

The writer of this letter has asked to remain anonymous.