MSA Malaise Continues

Nine percent of the student body voted in this week’s Michigan Student Assembly elections.

Nine percent.

Compare that to the 22.7% of Detroit voters that showed up to vote in this November’s mayoral election. Keep in mind that after the special primaries and run-offs needed after the resignation of former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, this was the fourth time Detroiters were asked to head to the polls in a year with no state or national elections.

MSA has a huge candidate identity problem. Popular “parties” are either too fleeting (Michigan Action Party), radical (Defend Affirmative Action Party), or indistinguishable (Michigan Vision Party, reMichigan Campaign, etc). Independent voters are identified by a paragraph next to their names on the ballot, or if you’re really industrious, by their Facebook profiles. I’m not voting for someone I don’t know, and MSA is too ineffectual for me to take the huge amount of time needed to research candidates.

You know who I would vote for? Someone who runs a single issue campaign promising to fight to return each student’s annual $7.19 MSA fee that’s automatically tacked on to tuition. There are 19 LSA college seats in MSA. I would vote for someone who promises to slash that number to three. I don’t need 19 representatives. I don’t want a student government with so many members. I don’t want to give any of my money to an organization that hasn’t earned a cent of it.

–Chris Koslowski