Direct Elections for a Better UC

Eighteen votes. Those were all it took to kill the most important proposal of the Undergraduate Council Reform Commission (UCRC), which would have mandated direct election of reps to each of the UC’s three committees. The UCRC’s proposal is an excellent solution to the UC’s long-standing problem of filling less desirable committees with uninspired, unwilling reps. Its failure ensures that students interested in participating primarily in one committee of the UC will continue to engage in a crapshoot every fall. Supporters of the reform within the council must continue to lobby their peers to support this legislation. UC reps must agree to what is in the best interests of the student body, not their own personal political aspirations.

The benefits of the reform are obvious. Many candidates run for the UC seeking an appointment to a particular committee; only after elections do they find themselves planning Springfest or interviewing grants applicants. The UCRC’s solution is clear and effective: make sure that the only individuals who serve on each committee are committed, by forcing candidates to run for one specific committee rather than a general UC seat.

The UCRC’s proposal would also allow candidates to run much more focused and substantive campaigns than is currently the case. As it is now, candidates often make three sets of vague and stale promises—without knowing exactly which committee they will be elected to, how could they do anything else? Under the proposed reform, student voters would benefit from specific discussions of the issues related to each committee, and, in turn, cast better informed ballots.

Some have claimed that the reform would make it far more difficult for sophomores entering the Houses to get elected, but this is certainly not the case. As it stands, sophomores often beat junior and senior incumbents, and there is no evidence to suggest that the reform would alter this fact. Further, even if it were true that the reform would force sophomores to seek election to less glamorous committees, the end result would still benefit the student body. Those sophomores who were seriously dedicated to the UC and its mission would still run and serve on other committees, gaining experience and demonstrating their merit to their electorates. Either way, the student body would get more excited UC reps than it enjoys now.

For many within the UC, especially younger members, this vote was about naked self-interest. If all the freshman present at the UC meeting last Sunday had skipped out, an 18-13 vote against the reform would have been tied at 12-12. Since these freshmen supposedly have the most to lose from this reform, the vote tally regrettably comes as no surprise. But shouldn’t UC reps vote in their constituents interests and not in their own?

This is not to say that there aren’t valid arguments against the direct elections. Some council die-hards continue to stress that the UC should not devolve into a separate committee mindset. We disagree. The Harvard student body demands two things from its UC representatives: accountability and enthusiasm. Committees should not be able to blame the entire UC for passing poorly planned expenditures that their members bring before the council. More work needs to be done in committees to vet proposals beforehand. To ensure this level of accountability, UC reps must be fit—both in expertise and inclination—for their committees, which in turn must be encouraged to end their reliance on the full council to make all the tough decisions on the merits of each bill. If the UCRC’s proposal for direct elections will provide some separation between UC committees, as its detractors claim, then we welcome that change.

There is also the issue of UC diversity. Jason L. Lurie ’05 has said that direct elections could limit diversity on the UC by raising the number of votes required to be elected from 26 percent to 51 percent. The theory goes that if minority voters vote in blocks, raising this threshold would diminish the power of those blocks, making a more diverse UC harder to achieve. Without questioning whether the student body is better off with reps elected by one of these blocks—minority candidates should appeal to a broad constituency, after all—the best solution would ultimately be to encourage more students from diverse backgrounds to run for office.

The UC must pass this reform. If need be, the proposal could be modified to allow representatives to run for two committees instead of one. While far from ideal, any amount of change towards direct elections will dramatically improve the council’s effectiveness. If even this compromise won’t move bill opponents to change their votes, the UC must submit the question to a student referendum. With enough outreach and publicity, Harvard students can be educated about the pros and cons of this important reform. And with their wisdom behind the vote, untainted by the self-interest in which some UC reps seem to dabble, we expect that this reform will be passed. The current stalled state of this direct elections reform is unacceptable, and either reform-minded UC members or the student body at large must do whatever it takes to effect the change that the council so desperately needs to better serve the student community.