Throwback Thursday, Week 6: Turn out for what?

Each Spring quarter, student voters must ask themselves the question: What has student government done for me?

In 1983, Perfect Student Union president Stuart Holbrook asked this question during the Undergraduate Students Association Council debates. Holbrook debated against three other presidential candidates, though curiously enough, he wasn’t a candidate himself.

He was standing in for presidential candidate Paul Dell’Amico, who was too busy studying for a midterm to attend the debates. The seriousness of his candidacy, which by all appearances was not a joke, earned him a dismal 6.6 percent of the vote.

Dell’Amico’s absence was puzzling considering his concern with student government’s inaction. He told The Bruin he believed there was “an acute stagnation of student government at UCLA, …. the bureaucratic equivalent of ‘Much Ado About Nothing.'”

As his proxy at the debate, Holbrook argued, “This year, student government has been an embarrassment to UCLA students. Housing is tighter, reg fees are tighter (sic).”

Overall, only 4,954 of the 22,933 students enrolled in the 1982-1983 academic year participated in the election. The 21.6 percent voter turnout is worse than turnout in any regular election from the past decade, which has vacillated between 30 and 40 percent.

Both then and now, student government has grappled with the question of how to improve student outreach. Just last year, the USAC Election Board funded voter incentives through Associated Students UCLA. The Bruin Editorial Board supported this decision, despite concerns that students would be voting for the wrong reasons if offered incentives.

Neither the idea nor the concerns are anything new. In the 1983 USAC debate, candidates were asked their opinion on voter incentives. Holbrook disapproved, claiming students should be inspired to vote by the hope of an effective student government.

Candidate Bobby Bock even argued the incentives could worsen voter engagement. “We’re trying to buy you off through beer and Häagen-Dazs. That doesn’t solve apathy, that creates apathy,” he said.

This apathy resonates today with the roughly 70 percent of undergraduate students who do not participate in spring elections and spend Week 6 avoiding Bruin Walk. It also resonated in Dell’Amico’s absence at the 1983 USAC debates, and his own disenchantment with student government.

Despite his desire to make a change by being different – “not radical, but different,” according to Holbrook – The Bruin Editorial Board didn’t endorse Dell’Amico. It endorsed Bock instead, citing his previous experience as Facilities commissioner, his support for affirmative action throughout the campus community and platforms to increase students involvement in the 1984 Olympics and curb ASUCLA – which he said he thought was “a corporation that’s run a little bit amok.”

However, both Bock and Dell’Amico lost to Ben Van de Bunt, who told The Bruin “I’m not just the Greek candidate running … our whole campaign is a real personable thrust.” Van de Bunt was endorsed by then-USAC President Bobby Grace and Budweiser, on a account of his title as champion of the Intramural Budweiser Golf Tournament.

Whether through affiliation, platforms or experience, Van de Bunt overcame the Bruin’s non-endorsement. He promised to advocate for issues that mattered to students: parking, professors’ tenure and lower tuition and student fees, all still concerns today, and equally pressing without immediate solution.

And so students – the minority who does turn out – continue to vote while asking, what can student government do for them?