“Is this really supposed to be- I mean, I’ve seen way worse stuff than this on the internet. I don’t-” -Charlie, Smiling Friends (2020)
Wednesday night, the University Daily Kansan reported that KU Student Body President (SBP) Andrew Murga was alleging collusion by some members of the Student Senate Fee Review Committee, relating to an internal group chat they supposedly communicated in during the Fee deliberation process. After Murga reported seeing consistencies in “one sect of the voting body,” he was informed that there was discussion happening alongside the formal deliberation among some members of the Committee, which he suggests amounts to, in the Kansan’s words, “rigging the deliberations.” He also stated that those implicated in these allegations, including Internal Affairs Director Kate Eckert and Student Speaker Robert Eppler, could face the Senate’s “internal judicial process.” On its face, this seems like the next major scandal in KU’s Student Senate, right up there next to Keg Gate and the racist resignation of 2021.
But it isn’t. In fact, this is hardly a scandal at all. The Kansan, as they tend to do when their money is on the line, has run with a story that, based on what we know now, amounts to nothing. More than just an empty story, this kind of reporting supports Murga’s antipolitical tactics and risks the destabilization of the entire Fee Review process.
Before I offer my two cents, I should clarify that I am speaking about a situation which pertains to people I am connected to. Andrew appointed me to my position as the Chair of the Student Senate Sustainability Advisory Board (SSSAB), where I am charged with, among other responsibilities, “respond[ing] to additional charges assigned by the Student Body President.” The SSSAB issued recommendations to the Committee during the fee review process. I have had at least one class with Kate and know her personally. I have worked with Robert on various senate-related matters over the past few months. Both Kate and Robert have spoken to me about potentially creating more robust internal judicial structures with the Senate, though it remains to be seen if that project will materialize. While I am not personally involved in any of these unfolding matters, I am not totally detached from them either.
This is also my commentary on the state of affairs as I understand them at the time of writing. My opinion could be subject to change as new information comes to light. I am also writing in a personal capacity as a community contributor to The Weekly Rose, not as the Chair of the SSSAB or as some sort of Senate insider.
With all that squared away, this whole situation appears to be a nothing burger.
It all boils down to a group of senators speaking about the Fee Review process before and during formal deliberations and coordinating their decisions accordingly. In other words, politicians were making political decisions together.
Is this not how political decisions tend to work?
It would not be a scandal for US Senate Democrats to be speaking to one another via text about a bill as the Senate prepares to deliberate on it, so why would it differ for our Student Senate? If there were a rule explicitly prohibiting this sort of conduct, it would make sense to call it out, but there is nothing in § 05-02, the Fee Review portion of the Student Senate Constitution, which disallows this sort of informal commentary. If anything, § 06-04-01 explicitly permits this sort of informal coalition-building, stating that “members of the Student Senate… may form Student Coalitions for their mutual benefit.” There is no clause stating these coalitions need to be formal, registered, or named, nor is there additional regulation on how they need to conduct themselves beyond the existing Senate rules. The group chat in question wasn’t even some spontaneous project; “Leg Leaders” refers to the group chat for the legislative officers, which includes Eckert, Eppler, Chair of Students Rights and Affairs Simrah Javed, and others.
The Kansan’s reporting on Javed’s actions were particularly odd. The Kansan reports that Javed acknowledged that “no procedural or Robert's rules were broken.” I am of the same opinion. They then report that Javed agreed with Murga’s assessment that “the atmosphere and the… productivity of the deliberation” is called into question by the presence of this group chat. They position this single, confirmatory account of the accusations right next to Javed’s texts in said group chat. The rhetorical contradiction of someone implicated in this matter speaking negatively about the atmosphere they are accused of creating apparently merited no inquisition by Author Marissa Buffon, or more importantly, by the Kansan’s editorial team.
Separately, Javed’s messages, as well as those sent by Eckert and Eppler, were never in reference to proposed “fee allocations”; they were an informal discussion about student responses to the Required Student Fee Survey (RSFS), not a “[suggestion to cut] the University Daily Kansan” from anyone on the Committee. While the Kansan noted as much in the image caption for Javed’s message, they failed to do so anywhere for those from Eckert and Eppler. The chair of the Required Student Fee, Nathan Binshtok, tasked the legislative officers – Javed, Eppler, Eckert, and Finance Vice Chair Shawn Lawson – with categorizing, or ‘coding’, responses to the Survey for the convenience of those on the Committee. Eckert’s text does not appear to be commentary on active deliberations, rather it appears to be jokingly jabbing at a particular response advocating for funding the Kansan, implying that there were not many concurring responses. Eppler’s text about his response “being coded as funding the UDK” is likely in reference to the flat way responses were coded, with any mention of a fee entity in a RSFS response being noted in one lump statistic without distinguishing if the response had a positive or negative connotation. The context of this task indicates that Javeed, Eppler, and Eckert fairly and accurately presented the information from the RSFS in the way they were tasked, even when their own personal beliefs about how the fee should be structured were not reflected.
Murga also believes that senators “brought in members” to the Committee who lacked Senate experience. Even if there was some conspiracy to recruit senators who were potentially naïve and moldable – which there is no evidence to support – these members were elected from the the Finance and Student Rights & Affairs councils. If these inexperienced Committee members were not qualified, it was on those in the two independent councils who voted them in. More fundamentally, though, everyone is inexperienced at something before they have the chance to become experienced. If there were some people new to Senate on the Fee Review Committee, is that not how they become experienced? Is it not to be expected that not everyone on the Committee knows how everything works from the onset? There is also a twinge of irony for someone who marketed himself as a Senate outsider during his presidential run to call out the lack of Senate experience of some on the committee.
Murga also alleged that “much of the dialogue between members on the livestream was scripted to make discussions seem authentic, when in many cases, they were not.”
Again, is this not just politics?
It is unclear to what extent discussion was scripted, if at all; the term is a catch-all which could refer to something as overt as a literal script senators were reading off, or something as subtle as some talking points prepared collaboratively ahead of time. At this time, there is no evidence of either of those things. Logically, if these committee members had scripted everything so successfully, the ensuing deliberations would not have taken over eight hours, full of passionate, thoughtful discussion. Regardless, ‘candidates discussing things and preparing things ahead of time’ ought to be expected of formal deliberations. The potential inauthenticity of some interactions does not then mean that the interactions ought to be disregarded, nor does it mean their substance is not useful.
This brings us to the potential consequences for these mundane actions. Murga said the alleged collusion violates “several constitutional ethics codes,” without so much as hinting at which ones. Looking at § 01-01-07, the Senate’s Code of Ethics, it is hard to find even a generous interpretation of its terms which would implicate those involved in this ‘scandal’ in some punishable wrongdoing. Did they somehow fail to represent their constituents? Is this group chat somehow in violation of “fair” discussion? Does it undermine “the conditions necessary for healthy and productive conversation?” Even if these alleged actions could be characterized as disagreeable or opaque, it is another thing entirely to suggest that they were, by the letter of the law, unethical.
In a follow-up piece posted a day later on Thursday, the Kansan took statements from a number of senators, who shared their “divided” opinions on this matter. To their credit, the Kansan was brave enough to include a scathing quote from Javed, who said that, “quite frankly[, they] don’t trust the vetting process of the UDK and [are] jarred at the rapid publication” of Wednesday’s piece. Rather than continuing to engage with the Kansan, Javed said that they “intend to report to my constituents on anything further.” Senator Angel Rivera also insightfully shared that Murga’s tactics “lack a substantive basis and were made in a manner that was both rash and ill-advised,” and that they were meant to “intimidate or unduly influence the upcoming vote before the Finance Council.” While not articulating it as such, Rivera points to Murga’s antipolitical tactics which threaten to derail these proceedings, all with over $24 million hanging in the balance.
On the other hand, there were some senators who expressed concern with the alleged conduct of the ‘colluding’ senators. Committee member and championer of SafeRide Esperança Monteiro Henson said they “felt like it was quite misleading.” Henson expressed particular concern with the alleged tit-for-tat political tactics, saying that she “didn't know that we were playing, literally playing politics.” Lawson also voiced concerns about the integrity of the deliberations, feeling as though “nothing that [they] or anyone else could say during deliberations would sway” those potentially implicated in this matter. While I respect these concerns, particularly that it is better for these sorts of things to happen in forums open to student constituents and their feedback, the argument that ‘real politics’ can be unsavory or that not every discussion about policy happens strictly in the formal deliberation really doesn’t seem to rise to the level of campus-wide concern and potentially blowing up this whole process, despite the Kansan framing it as such.
I want to be clear that this is not a dig at Esperança or Shawn, who are both capable, experienced senators. I know Esperança personally and know Shawn indirectly through mutual friends. It is not unreasonable to express discontentment with these alleged subversive negotiations, so long as the criticism is proportional to the subject of the critique. Still, even when the Kansan has the chance to pull specific quotes from statements, if this is the worst insiders can testify to, it seems to me they have overhyped this matter through their uncritical journalism.
On the part of Murga, this is antipolitics at work. In effect, Murga is engaging in an act of political subterfuge by suggesting that his political rivals shouldn’t be engaging in political acts. In other words, he is deploying antipolitics as an inherently political act against the Committee.
Without further, more explicit information, one can only speculate on why exactly Murga chose to pursue this matter. Still, given his suggestion that “the group went as far as cutting hundreds of thousands of dollars from long-standing KU entities to allocate funds that would make them look good,” I believe Andrew was not satisfied with the final Fee package and wants to see it substantially revised before he signs off on it. Given that Murga is in the most powerful position in KU’s student government, this political move could carry with it serious ramifications for those involved.
Murga suggested that “the individuals involved are subject to our internal judicial process.” Given the lack of specification as to which process Murga plans on invoking, he is leaving the door wide open to run to whichever court he sees fit. He could resurrect the Student Senate Judicial Board, appeal to the University Judicial Board, assemble the Student Senate Executive Committee and seek charges of impeachment, or take this to any number of other forums. If he succeeds, the whole Fee process may come apart, opening the door to either a whole new, rushed process without dissenters, or even sending things up the chain of command to the million-dollar man and union buster-in-chief, Chancellor Doug Girod, bypassing the democratic process and will of the students entirely.
This whole subversion may not even play out in his favor, given that the Kansas State Legislature, in their tradition of cutting funding for higher education, proposed in recent days keeping the allowable student fee increase flat. If this change goes through, even if Murga is able to hijack the Review process, he could only increase it from the original proposal by about $2 at most. Perhaps if the Kansan was less laser-focused on their own money, they could do what even the Lawrence Journal World has done and report on this immediately-relevant matter which has even Doug worried.
A cynical interpretation of this situation is that Murga is deliberately creating chaos to ram through his political agenda. A more generous interpretation is that Murga genuinely cares about the ethics and openness of the Fee Review process and wants to act to preserve those things accordingly. Regardless of how Murga feels, however, the antipolitical efforts of the Kansas Senate to undercut the ability for Kansas students to decide how to spend their money have been propped up on the back of Murga’s accusations; irrespective of Murga’s intentions, our control of our fee is now at risk of being partially clawed away from us.
On the part of the Kansan, this is terrible reporting. When the Kansan’s funding was cut by 80% in the original Fee package last year, despite having been mistreated by them in the past, I advocated for their funding to stay the same, arguing they were worth the money. However, after they falsely claimed that my mold piece was only possible through paid journalism – despite it being the result of the unpaid labor of myself, my connections to the KU microbiology department, and my co-author Colin – after I learned of the Kansan’s former broken promises, and after I spoke to members of the Fee Review Committee, who explained, among other things, their rationale and the hard fee increase limit of 2% set by KBOR meaning something had to give, I recognized that the Committee had made the right decision cutting the Kansan’s money. So when I say that I agree with most of what members of this year’s Committee chose to cut (except for recycling and what will eventually be block funding), know that I don’t think that uncritically. The Kansan does some good work. They’re a fun little tool for keeping up with campus policy and developments. But when it comes to this sort of reporting, they are tools of a different kind.
To call this hard-hitting reporting is an insult to hard-hitting reporting. The Kansan engages in critiques of the Student Senate almost exclusively when their money is on the line. While I understand advocating for yourself as a paper, to claim to be “the student voice since 1904” while engaging in this selective work is suspect. If the representative body of the students, elected by the students, with completely unique sets of senators, in at least three separate years, decide to put their foot down and tell you to get money from elsewhere, what does it say about “the student voice” to run with a flimsy story which could undermine that rejection?
I get the frustration of many voicing their concerns in the comment section of the Kansan’s Instagram post about this story, but to suggest uncritically that students ought to have less power when it comes to how their money is spent infantilizes these adults who made the difficult decisions on what to spend our money on – the mental health services and transit infrastructure students need. When people see headlines talking about how the Kansan was “defunded” when they weren’t, that senators may have engaged in “collusion” or “misconduct” when they didn’t, or that there is a “divide” on the Fee Committee which there might not have been without this subpar reporting, the result is angry people and lots of clicks. No one but the Kansan benefits from that.
While those stories are no doubt worth reporting on, the manner in which they are reported is what I seek to problematize here. There was no independent verification nor interrogative analysis in either of the Kansan’s pieces; it was all unthinking, underbaked, unquestioning ‘reporting’, devoid of any deeper substance than the words they regurgitated from others. This sort of neglect is a chronic problem with the Kansan’s reporting. I understand not every news piece can read like this one, which is open about and embraces its biases and connections, but on Bloom’s Taxonomy, the Kansan's reporting barely reaches level 2. Rather than stick to good-faith discussions and campaigning to secure funds, the Kansan is propping up gossip. The Kansan wasn’t cheated out of funding. They were told to go get it from Block.
Perhaps those in the “Leg Leaders” chat could have approached their duties with more openness, tact, and poise, but such a banal objection is hardly reason to threaten to throw the book at them or uncritically report on their alleged conduct. ‘Senators deliberating’ is the opposite of a scandal. I am interested to see how this matter plays out, and I hope this matter doesn’t distract from our need for local reporting, democratic representation, political engagement, and a fair Fee package.
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