I’m in my seventh year here and am currently an SGA senator for the law school, so I’ve seen the work and sometimes disgusting actions that have happened inside and outside the SGA and SGA elections. For the most part, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Machine controlled SGA doesn’t really want to do much without being prodded by outside forces. The SGA president is normally elected with one major point as their platform and they attempt to fulfill that, but that’s the extent of what you can typically expect from the senate and SGA Executive Council any given year. Given that tradition of mediocrity, the least you can do is make your voice heard by looking at the candidates and their affiliations and decide who you want to be represented by.
There are several reasons you should at least make the effort to vote. The most recent attempt to help many of the least privileged across campus, through the Spirit of Alabama Act, shows the Machine and SGA executives are extremely resistant to accept change they didn’t introduce. This is to be expected from a campus where the SGA is viewed as useless or not serving the students and when many on campus feel there is no point in running. Despite that perception, it is not something that everyone has to accept as reality.
It is absolutely true that it is possible for members of the SGA to push for change on campus. They are the representatives of the student body, and for that reason, many in the campus administration take their input very seriously. The senators and many in the Executive Council will have contacts and input in organizations that can help push their agenda towards the administration as well. The SGA also has power beyond merely words, so your votes do actually make a difference on campus.
Most importantly, many campus organizations will look toward the FAC board to fund their many events and travels. This board, which is directly influenced by the SGA senate and Executive, has the power to determine hundreds of thousands of dollars that will be distributed to student organizations registered on campus. I say that they have that power because the senate this year did not amend the bills submitted by the FAC or question the funding allocations. This is a great deal of power that is not open to many groups on campus, and if many groups across campus choose to not engage with the process, they are potentially giving up a lot.
It is true that the SGA, and by extension the Machine, does not make a great attempt to engage a huge variety of groups on campus or encourage voting, but that is to be expected from an organization where the status quo is consistently maintained. It is a cliché every year that campus leaders or writers for The Crimson White ask for individuals to actually pay attention to the SGA elections, but it is for a very good reason that they do so. If large portions of the student body refuse to engage with the SGA, they are only hurting themselves and potentially ruining their chances to make a change through the largest and most powerful group on campus.
Matthew Bailey is a third-year law student and an SGA Law School senator. His column runs biweekly.
