In my short time at GW little has happened regarding the Student Association that would get me excited about the organization. It seems that from the moment I got here scandal and impropriety have been in the headlines. This year, however, it seemed that change was in the air. For the first time I was genuinely excited about an SA presidential candidate. Omar Woodard seemed like just the guy to put the SA’s troubled past behind it and take the SA to a higher level. Although I was less excited about the executive vice presidential run-off, everything seemed like it would work out in the end. That was before last Sunday night.
After spending another long pre-endorsement day at The Hatchet office, I thought I could relax and watch the Academy Awards. But Executive Vice Presidential candidate Anyah Dembling’s alleged election faux pas made my night just a little longer. The Hatchet received notice that formal charges had been brought against Dembling, alleging she paid for memberships to the College Democrats so that those individuals could vote on her behalf in the group’s endorsement hearing. And while some would say it merely amounted to another election giveaway, if proven to be true, it would obviously be bribery.
As the week progressed, the Joint Elections Committee – the farce of a body charged with overseeing SA elections – pushed back its hearing on the matter twice, ultimately until after the election. On Friday, the charges were dropped because the JEC did not follow bylaws and serve her with a formal complaint. The perception of impropriety and slimy politics was, and is, too immense to ignore.
Last week I was talking SA politics with someone when he or she mentioned that there was in fact merit to the charges of vote buying by Dembling. This individual stated that he or she had been one of the people Dembling paid to vote for her in the CDs endorsement hearings. Someone else then confirmed what I already knew; that Dembling sent an e-mail denying that she would have ever done such a thing, and urging everyone to vociferously deny the charges.
It is one thing to operate under the ludicrous assumption that paying for someone to vote for you in an endorsement hearing is equivalent to handing out Sweet Tarts outside the Marvin Center. It is another thing entirely to know you’ve done something wrong and then to cover it up, as Martha Stewart recently discovered. In the real world, everyone knows that the prospect of power seduces individuals to act unethically. It is depressing to think the same is possibly true with regards to our student government. But the saddest fact is that the JEC, because of its own incompetence, cannot hold a hearing on the subject.
Imagine for a moment that John Kerry paid for a block of union officials’ dues out of his campaign war chest so they could support him in his quest for an AFL-CIO endorsement. The public would be disgusted and immediately call for his withdrawal as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, if proven true. It shouldn’t be any different regarding Dembling, if in fact she is found guilty.
This whole situation exposes serious flaws with the way the SA conducts its elections. For an organization pining for the student body to take it seriously, it is only logical for it first to take itself seriously. First and foremost, President Woodard and the Senate should work together to create an ethics committee to investigate these charges fully. If these allegations are ultimately proven true – which the preponderance of evidence suggests would be the case – Dembling should resign or face impeachment proceedings.
After this, the SA should take a hard look at the JEC’s idiosyncratic rules. The JEC should be a body concerned more with preventing gross violations against student democracy – such as bribery – than whether or not campaign workers stay inside the marked area outside of the Marvin Center.
President Woodard and the new SA Senate need to quickly take the initiative and get to the bottom of this issue. By doing this, the SA will help rid itself of the corruption endemic to the remnants of its establishment and put in place the mechanisms through which SA candidates and officials will be held accountable in the future.
-The writer, a sophomore majoring in international affairs, is Hatchet opinions editor.
