Editorials represent the viewpoint of the current La Voz editorial board.
Ever since the 2023-24 school year, De Anza Student Government has stayed largely unelected, with only last year’s senate and the few elected “executive” senators picking out the bulk of its cabinet.
Although DASG only enshrined its internal “elections” process into its Elections Code last January, it switched to becoming a mostly appointed body after it restructured in November 2022.
During internal “elections,” outgoing senators and the eight freshly elected “executive” senators appoint most of the next year’s senate.
This means the student government hasn’t let students vote for its entire senate since winter 2022.
In 2022’s DASG elections, at-large senators outnumbered chairs two to one; it’s roughly held that ratio since then.
Calling these appointments “elections” at all waters down what it means to be an “elected” official — a group of less than 40 students picking most of who governs a college with over 15,000 students (and giving them voting powers equal to elected senators, just without having to chair meetings) doesn’t lend internal officers and DASG as a whole legitimacy.
If anything, internals undermine the concept that De Anza Student Government is, in fact, a student government, accountable to its students.
Before DASG’s big restructuring, each senator had to go out and campaign for themself, earning legitimacy and a mandate to carry out their campaign promises.
Sure, senators could do it in coalitions — which the senate just banned again, following last year’s messy elections — but each senator had to at least earn enough students’ trust to get that popular mandate.
Instead, students just need enough current senators to like them more than the other candidates for their position to get in.
Now, it doesn’t matter if they’re deeply unpopular, or if most students either don’t know who they are or outright disapprove of them — even if the senate disqualified them earlier on in the general election, appointees get the same voting powers on the senate as elected officers with less responsibilities.
Internal “elections” rob the student body of its say in who makes decisions on its behalf, as well as its ability to hold senators accountable.
These “elections” also rob these senators of their legitimacy, since they only have to answer to a group of outgoing senators and other (also mostly unelected) senators, rather than making their case to the student body.
While internal senators aren’t outright illegitimate and this year’s senators have done their jobs, most senators have no obligation to serve the greater student body; their power doesn’t come from the student body as a whole, but rather, the faith of former senators.
While, yes, DASG will need to appoint senators in the middle of the year — especially if senators transfer out or quit — that needs to be the exception, not the norm. As it stands, unelected senators have the power to overturn the will of senators that got their jobs because this campus believed in their campaign and goals.
If DASG wants to regain its legitimacy and show that its power comes from the students, it needs to change its elections code and get rid of internal “elections,” or otherwise make it so appointees can’t vote, like how the Associated Students of Foothill College doesn’t let its president’s cabinet members and other unelected members vote, as they aren’t senators and don’t derive power from the people.
Otherwise, if this student government can’t trust its constituents to pick who leads them, it runs the risk of only being a “student” government in name.
