A Brief history of the Students for Fair & Equal Representation
In the early spring of 1998, 4th year Engineering Senior Andrew F. Knight (author of the book "Even when I'm in hell Christians will harass me", available under Amazon.com) decided to take action by forming an non-partisan organisation designed to produce reform in Student Government. First contacting Daniel Davis, author of an Alligator Column that jokingly criticised blue key & student government (see 'Florida Want Ads Found" in the Library), Knight began the future organization.
Added to Davis were Adam Goldfleisch, an outsider and participant in the Independent Student Coalition (which was disbanded prior to the Vision party of 1997's formation); Channing Rollo, a very articulate coed who had transferred from a California University and not looked on Florida's SG highly; and Lammi Lambert, another coed motivated to the reform cause.
Already have disregarded his former plans to run as an Independent for the Student Body Presidency (in order to gain publicity for electoral reform), Knight & the organization began planning for an initiative or constitutional amendment proposal to place on the ballot. The unanimous conclusions reached by the group were:
1) The only way to reform student government was to enact proportional representation, which means senate seats are given according to a strict and fair apportionment of the voting percentage (If Vision wins 10% of the vote, they win 10% of the seats. Almost all democratic countries in the world use Proportional Representation, with the exception of France, UK, US, & Canada).
2) The only way to do this was through plebicite--means through a popular vote by the people, and not by running impossible campaigns for office. Namely, either an Initiative (equivalent to a regular Law) or a proposed Constitutional Amendment.
3) A fully-legal and effective initiative could be placed on the ballot with only about 1,000 signatures--but the senate could nullify it easily if it passed. A Constitutional Amendment would be foolproof, but it required the difficult task of gathering 4,000 signatures plus 1/4 of the Student Body needed to turnout--which was the case until University President Lombardi in 1999 waived the 1/4 turnout requirement as impossible to fulfil).
The group was almost certain, along with Charles Grapski who advised the group on several of its matters, that a new constitution would be required, or at the least an amendment. Before the group could decide on a proper course of action, the Liable of Defamation Verdict hit President-Elect John McGovern & Florida Blue Key in late Spring, 1998.
Taking advantage of the dissatisfaction with both Blue Key and the popular outrage with McGovern (who was hated by both greeks & independents to begin with) the organization, now named 'Students for Fair & Equal Representation', began collecting signatures for an anti-Blue Key anti-McGovern initiative for the fall. (This initiative is archived in the Library section of this site as well and may be viewed).
Signatures began to be collected in support of the initiative which would allow students to vote on 1) Removing McGovern from office, 2) Removing Blue Key from its plush corner office space in the 3rd floor of the Reitz Union. The legality of both sections of the initiative, and whether the initiative was one issue or two, since FBK & McGovern are different, but yet were found equally liable defendants in the case, was still an unknown. Vision party staffers and candidates, including newly elected Liberal Arts Senator Sarah Ryan, helped gather signatures. The Alligator spun the article reporting this as if the Vision party itself was running the Initiative Effort, and not the leadership of the Students for Fair & Equal Rep. group.
Even several greeks signed the popular initiative, cursing McGovern
when they did so, ignoring the possibility of retribution from the new
president in the coming year. In all about 1300 signatures were collected
in a span of less than a week. A vocal protest was organised of McGovern
taking office by James Salt, a former Summer Senator and Vision party member
in front of Tigert Hall, the same place radical students had protested
almost 30 years before against the Vietnam War. "Ethics in,
McGovern Out" was chanted by Salt and repeated in Chorus as signs such
as "No More Student McGovernment" & "McGovern is Satan" were shown
to the TV cameras and reporters. Around least 50 students participated
in this rally--all while University Vice President Art Sandeen & Former
SG Treasurer Brent Gordon watched sullenly from the glass door of Tigert.
Salt was later to Lead Vision in its Fall '98 victory in District C, and
later to be arrested breaking into and stealing a Fraternity's Voter board
in the Spring '99 election)
Good news from the senate, after the spring 98 election, happened when Vision Senator Josh Etzkin (Engineering) proposed a comprehensive electoral reform plan to elect Fall Senators by Single Seat Districts. However the plan failed to solve the dilemma of disproportionality, and the technical difficulties of districting such a complex plan would have prevented it from being adopted without great struggle. Of course the senate voted it down, yet the sight of the Vision party for once attempting some measure of palpable reform was heartening, if not repeated.
Unfortunately setbacks occurred to the movement after this high point. Final exams had just begun after these few last days of spring, preventing more signatures from being gathered, thus forcing the Administration to do something--perhaps secretly hint to McGovern to resign now or else he will be resigned--or allowing the Senate to impeach him, impeachment which indeed was a possible outcome even up to the end of McGovern's Fall semester as President.
1,234 certified signatures were submitted to the new Chancellor of the Honor Court Laurel Moore, more than enough to qualify it on the ballot. However the legal language of the initiative was unanimously held by the Board to be in violation of SG codes when the Board was appealed by Davis when he petitioned for a Writ of Mandamus (a judicial order making a public official perform an action, namely in this case to place the initiative on the ballot) against Student Government.
The conflicts included the 'one subject' rule, as well as the legal explanation that the Reitz Union board of Managers decides office space, not Student Government (to which Andrew Knight responded, well, The Students are the true source of power and as such own both their SG & the Florida Union, which is only a student union funded one-half by Student Fees). But overshadowing even this was the House Bill, 4259, passed by the Florida Legislature and made law after Governor Lawton Chiles did not veto it (as under the Florida Constitution). The bill, prompted by the McGovern affair, amended the state code to prevent any Student found guilty of an immoral act from becoming a Student Body officer, and mandated a recall process to be available for students to remove unwanted Student Body officers. The only problem was 1) the ex post facto principle prevented McGovern from being suspended, and 2) the actual recall process was written by McGovern with the support of Kevin Mayeux (Student Body President in 1995 and then Director of the Florida Students Association, a pro-student lobbying organization based in Tallahassee), who both made virtually impossible to be used in the fall (or indeed much at all--the actual SG recall law was so unnecessarily convoluted it was well nigh impossible). Example:
"[Senator] Brooke Myrick, [Member of the Ad Hoc committee on implementation of the Casey amendment] who supported the committee's changes, said it is 'really stupid' to have the petition process broken up into two lengthy steps that require so many signatures." (Source: "Removal code remains in works", Ind. Fla. Alligator, 25AUG98)The death of the Initiative was a severe setback, however the Students movement continued with a proposal for constitutional amendment that would ensure real SG reform by implementing a fair & proportional system, no longer using the multi-member plurality system which always hurts the small parties and helps the powerful ones. There was even talk of using the new SG Constitution being written by Law Students James Stanton & Mike DeWese (alumnus), both former Student Senators. An intern with the Center for Democracy, a proportional representation lobbying group in Washington DC, was sent to help and advise the movement. Yet one final blow was to hit the movement that would destroy all hope of an amendment.
SG President John McGovern had succeeded in convincing the subservient senate, with no vision opposition given, to move the election forward two weeks in the Fall. Since amendments proposed by signatures have to be submitted to the Honor Court 2 weeks prior to the start of campaigning (which itself is 2 weeks before the election), it meant the movement had only 2 weeks since the start of class to gather over 4,000 signatures--an impossible task.
The student reform Movement then was forced to appeal to then University Vice President Art Sandeen (effectively second in command of the University behind President Lombardi), to order SG to move the elections back to its normal schedule. However, as predicted, the Administration refused politely and said that was that. Sandeen believed that SG was following its own procedures and as such playing fair--and to intervene in Student Affairs would set a bad precedent, and worse would destroy the very purpose of Student Government, which is to provide a learning experience to students.
Only a law suit in county court could save the movement. However such a suit would have to be against the University, probably after several students involved refused to pay part of their A&S fees. The risk to such a manoeuvre, and the time involved, and the fierce opposition that the University's legal counsel office would provide made such a suit seem hopeless.
The movement had been completely thwarted by the McGovern administration and political reality. However, two good things were accomplished--Vision, for the first (and last) time would officially campaign on a proportional representation platform, and McGovern was given a setback when Vision's message of Reform was successful by Fall standards at the polls, increasing from 3 to 8 seats.
Unfortunately, Vision lacked the manpower, strength of will, and knowledge to even attempt to reform student Government. The reform platform disappeared from memory. Even so, McGovern remained vulnerable to impeachment at least until the end of the Fall Semester, until the upcoming Spring 1999 elections would distract attention from his administration. But in the end, the anti-McGovern momentum had been lost and the Students movement was too soon end.
Never popular with greeks and hated by independents just as much, McGovern was considered by the Action-Party majority Senate as a rather long-winded individual with a great hunger for attention--but still holding the considerable powers of SG president, McGovern, though disliked by his own Treasurer Ian Lane and the Blue Key Chapter Leadership,was able to remain in office through hard work, dealing, and even successful pro-student programs such as the Technology Cabinet's "SWAT Team" of volunteers created to help freshmen install their network connections. Suprisingly, McGovern appointed several independents to high positions for reasons of merit alone, for example in offering a former Alliance Senator the Housing Cabinet Directorship.
Andrew Knight prepared for Graduation at the end of his fifth-year of Nuclear Science. Lambert, Rollo, Goldfleisch were also to graduate. Only Davis was left, who later broke with Vision due to philosophical differences; he ran on an independent reform platform against both Vision and the system in the Fall of 1998 for the on-campus Murphree seat. He finished second with 104 votes out of 351 cast and denied the Vision candidate a majority of votes cast.
The Students for Fair & Equal Representation came to an end, after
a brief but memorable attempt to truly reform Student Government at its
foundation.
07 April 2000
APPENDIX
The Cover of the Pamphet
The inside half of the short-lived but effective Students for Fair
& Equal Representation pamphlet. The Pamphlet was designed by
Channing Rollo--the supression of the SFER cause by McGovern made mass
production of the pamphlets moot. As opposed to other 'feel-good'
media from the Vision party of the time, this work outright calls for immediate
reform.
Students for Fair & Equal Representation member Daniel Davis ran
against the Vision ('Minority') and Action ('Majority') in Fall of the
1998 in a hard fought election. (click
here for official results)
An example of anti-Blue Key parody by the Students for Fair &
Equal Representation (Work by C. Rollo)