Nearly a year after bribery charges were leveled against Student Association election winners, the Student-wide Judiciary was prepared last week to send the case to a trial. Instead, the scandal came to an abrupt end Tuesday, as the accusers failed to file basic paperwork and the judiciary dismissed their case. –The Spectrum, p. 1, 24 February 2006

Pelkey has been clamoring for “due process” since he first brought forth the bribery charges against Kased, and he actually got it. It’s a shame he didn’t know how to use it. –The Spectrum, editorial, 24 February 2006

I was gonna go to court before I got high

I was gonna pay my child support but then I got high

They took my whole paycheck and I know why... –Afroman

The resolution of the SA bribery scandal of 2005 should come as a shock to no one. Its outcome was written before the events leading up to it even took place, its roots running deep in the DNA of our culture and, specifically, our generation.

In the days preceding last year’s SA executive board elections, SA treasurer candidate and then-SA Senate Chair Mazin Kased offered Francisco Baiocchi, a SUNY SA candidate running in the Reform Our Campus Party (ROC), a job in the next administration if Baiocchi dropped from the race, denounced ROC, and threw his support behind Kased’s party, Elevation ’05.

Kased said he would bring Baiocchi “into the family,” and offered him his choice of high-level SA positions, specifically mentioning paid appointments like Student Affairs director and elected positions like a seat on the SA Senate.

I know all this because, well, Kased told me. Baiocchi taped the conversation and, when questioned, Kased acknowledged that he had made the offers, insisting only that the tape was being taken out of context.

Now, I harbor no illusions about the way American government works and has always worked. Elections are won and lost in the back rooms and windowless corridors of the world. So it was a bit of a surprise when Baiocchi decided to take action, record the deal, and lead a year-long charge in the name of ethics with the help of ROC running mate Matthew Pelkey.

It seemed, at first, like a triumph over the traditional view of Generation-I’ll-Get-To-It-Later, a clear example of a couple of young firebrands working within the system to fight what they believed was a moral injustice.

That is, until February 24, 2006, a day that should live in historic infamy for the sole reason that it was neither historic nor infamous. Baiocchi and Pelkey had clear evidence of, if not an impeachable offense on the part of Kased, then at least a glaring example of the possibility for corruption within the SA electoral system. But they blew their chance to strike a blow for reform because they couldn’t muster the organizational skills required to mail a letter.

(I called both Baiocchi and Pelkey at least twice last week for an explanation, but apparently they’ve either got midterms to study for or have moved on to greener political pastures.)

After a year’s worth of public bitching and seemingly tireless effort, the passionate reformers got to the final round and played their last hand with all the apathy and ham-handedness of a couple of stoners trying to register a car at the DMV. And all this with their thrice-weekly student newspaper, The Spectrum, practically setting their alarm clocks for them with cogent and regular updates on the developments of the case.

In the end, the scandal will most likely go down as a monument to the political wherewithal that has characterized the American youth culture for at least the past decade, if not more: all bark and no bite. In that respect, the outcome was, perhaps, perfectly human, and a stunningly representative sample of the undergraduate student body.