Every spring, as the ASSU election nears, potential ASSU senators and executive slates begin to canvass the campus with flyers, banners and the other accoutrements of the campaign season. A number of candidates even go one step further, incorporating elaborately produced YouTube videos, Web sites and other features into their campaigns. In the end, all of the candidates collectively spend a hefty sum just to reach their goals of getting elected to student government. Now, it is time to cap the amount of money candidates can spend in pursuit of their election goals.

At the ASSU Senate meeting on Monday, ASSU Vice President Andy Parker ‘10 proposed a mandatory spending cap that, if approved, would limit ASSU executive campaigns to $2,500 in financing while increasing public financing to $1,000. There was considerable disagreement, however, over the constitutionality and practicality of Parker’s proposal. As an alternative, ASSU Elections Commissioner Quinn Slack ’11 suggested that the ASSU simply increase public financing to $2,000 without capping the total amount that can be spent on an election. In the end, for the second week in a row, the senators put off the issue of campaign spending caps until another time.

The Editorial Board recommends that the ASSU Senate not only enact the spending caps proposed by Parker, but also create additional spending caps for ASSU Senate candidates as well as the executive slates. This is the best option for ensuring that all candidates for ASSU positions are elected based on their qualifications and campaign platforms, rather than simply their ability to make their names visible on campus. Every year, along with all of the actual serious policy discussion, the ASSU election also sparks a publicity arms race that oftentimes seems as gimmicky as the competition to become the next Tree. If candidates had a more limited amount of funds with which to work, then maybe they would be more inclined to center their campaigns on actual issues rather than slogans and buzzwords.

Slack’s alternative proposal to increase public financing without spending caps would be worse than doing nothing–it would mean dramatically increasing ASSU spending for elections, without actually leveling the field of competition. Even with $2,000 in public financing, a less affluent executive slate would still be at a considerable disadvantage against a slate with greater personal resources at their disposal. At a university like Stanford, where students are given equal opportunities despite the significant gap between those on financial aid and those who are wealthier, it is important to have a student government that reflects the diversity of its student population, economically as well in ethnicity and gender.

The Editorial Board recommends that the ASSU Senate devote some serious attention to actually pushing through election finance reform. The last time that an election-spending cap came to a vote was in 1999, and it was defeated. Now, in the year 2010, there are even more reasons to cap election spending than there were then. It is time to actually do something about this issue. It may be too late for the upcoming ASSU elections, but maybe, if the Senate commits itself to this issue, something can actually be done by the spring of 2011.