Elected officials in the ASUC, like politicians everywhere, love to make bold pronouncements about nebulous topical issues, such as mental health or sexual assault. Tying themselves to non-controversial and unchallenging issues makes it fairly easy for these officials to undertake projects that seem useful without taking any real responsibility for solving problems — for example, spending several months organizing a “conference to raise awareness” that lasts for a couple of hours one Saturday and is attended only by people who already care about the issue.

This is obviously unacceptable for a few reasons: First, it doesn’t actually solve these problems, which are actual serious problems that require serious work; second, it contributes to the (mostly) false idea that the ASUC is a gigantic time-and-money-waster that can’t achieve anything; and third, it diminishes the legitimacy of the members of the ASUC that actually do extensive and valuable work on these issues (a category that includes elected officials but also appointed officials and office staff, who constitute the bulk of the ASUC and who are doing amazing work every day with basically no reward or credit given to them).

Several weeks ago, homophobic chalked messages started appearing on Sproul Plaza and in other places around campus. I reported this to UCPD and the Centers for Educational Justice and Community Engagement. After receiving no response, I contacted ASUC Senator Marandah Field-Elliot to pressure administration to do something about it. (Field-Elliot is a SQUELCH! senator whom I helped elect, but she is also the only senator who ran on platforms addressing queer issues, so she was also the appropriate senator to contact in this instance.)

We were quickly informed that the administration would do nothing to combat the chalking because it did not technically constitute a “hate crime.” Chalking does not count as vandalism, and the perpetrator was not a student. Field-Elliot, after much repeated badgering, finally secured a meeting with several key members of administration two weeks ago. Five of her fellow senators promised to join her (thanks, Senator Alyssa Liu, for following through on your commitments, even when you think nobody is watching!), but four of them bailed on her less than 12 hours before the meeting.

At the first senate meeting of this semester, I made public comment and expressed the difficulty I and other students had been experiencing due to the chalking. I announced that I would be doing some positive counter-chalking after the meeting because I wanted to make a positive statement affirming the right of the LGBTQ+ community to feel appreciated and welcome on campus. I asked the senators to join me after their meeting, briefly, to write a few positive messages and leave a significant positive statement at minimal personal expense. And, because I’m a nasty person and can’t resist twisting the knife, I specifically mentioned that I would remember who did and who didn’t show up.

Nine senators, as well as all the executive officers, either showed up or provided me with a legitimate excuse. Those 11 senators who for some unknowable reason didn’t have 20 minutes to spare: Senators Ian Bullitt, Annie Tran, Benyamin Mohd Yusof, Bianca Filart, Helen Yuan, Jay Choi, Jenny Kim, Nathan Kelleher, Monsoon Pabrai, Wesley Wan and Xiao Li.

If any of these senators plan on running for executive office this year — and because that list includes the entire Student Action senate slate (with the exception of Senator Miranda Hernandez), some of them unquestionably are — know that, as I promised, I will not forget.

“Campus climate” — a term that refers to the degree to which students of different and diverse identities feel safe and accommodated on campus — is an excellent example of one of these nebulous problems ASUC officials love to “address.” It’s often used as a catch-all to discuss issues of minority representation, social justice and all those other fun problems that the anonymous commenters are going to call me a bleeding-heart PC America-destroyer for mentioning.

The ASUC loves it because it scores everyone some nice progressivism points, and it’s relevant to both the big parties’ stated interests — CalSERVE gets to feel like it owns the issue because it speaks for every underrepresented minority, and it’s superficially relevant to Student Action’s slogan, “Every Student, Every Year,” a nonsense phrase that looks good on T-shirts.

But, because actual work is thorny, tedious and unglamorous, the actual nitty-gritty necessary steps toward the solution of this issue are usually neglected, no matter how obvious or trivial they may seem. Therefore, it falls once again to us, the electorate, to hold our representatives accountable: If we cannot trust them to devote 20 minutes to an easy but necessary task, how can we trust them to work for students’ needs on a larger scale?

That will be a question the senators should be forced to reckon with before they expect us to vote for them again come spring.

Jake Fineman writes the Monday column on the ASUC. Contact him at [email protected].