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The major similarity between the 2003 and 2004 Student Government elections isn't that students voted online. It's that one ticket dominated.
SG members differ on how Focus, which swept elections this year, reflected the success of Students First, which won all but one position in 2003.
Leaders of both Focus and the newly defeated Reprezent ticket emerged from Students First.
Each side took different lessons from that year. Focus leaders repeated the formula of a broad coalition, a positive message and superior organization to win a greater victory.
Reprezent tried to break away. Now, its leaders claim current SG members and the SG-supported Freshman Leadership Organization favored Focus, the ticket with more incumbents, in order to keep the assembly in familiar hands.
Who's clapping?
The few SG members who showed up to the first meeting after elections fidgeted, talked and ate throughout much of the business.
Ben Durham, a College of Liberal Arts representative, leaned back in his chair. He had won his last election with Students First. This year, he helped manage Reprezent. When he took the floor in a yellow T-shirt and torn jeans, he brought a resignation letter.
"There are certain people who want to make sure there's a legacy," he told the assembly.
The members stopped fidgeting. SG President Brian Haley cupped his chin in his hand, staring down at the table.
Durham walked to the door, leaving his letter. Graduate representative Laura Gladney-Lemon, a Focus candidate, raised her hand. She had just spoken about the legitimacy of concerns Reprezent raised.
"Can I address you, please?" she said.
"No," Durham said. The door slammed.
Slowly, about half of the room broke into applause. The executive officers kept silent.
Haley said later the split applause showed a split in SG.
"There obviously are supporters of Focus and Reprezent who are in Student Government, and that probably explains what happened last night," he said.
The coalition
They started visiting student groups in September and October, asking "what we could do better with Student Government," Chaney said.
"We have activists on our ticket, we have progressives on our ticket, we also need conservatives on our ticket," Chaney said.
They ended up with a group so diverse, he said, that many candidates at the first few meetings did not know each other. Their platform was large enough to be "probably one of the biggest platforms I've ever seen."
Focus even won the endorsement of UT Watch, a campus activist group.
"That was a huge, huge endorsement for us," Chaney said.
Focus also had the larger share of current SG members and appointees. According to rosters on the SG and FLO Web sites, the ticket had 14 current members and officials running, while Reprezent had eight.
The opposition
From the beginning, Reprezent was critical and reactive. Durham, Patrick George, two-year, at-large representative, and International Affairs Chairman Matt Stolhandske thought they didn't fit into the ticket Chaney and McGinity were setting up.
"I've been a part of two campaigns that are very similar to Focus," George said. "I didn't want to be part of continuing something that's been seen for the last two years."
Durham met once with Chaney about combining the tickets. The compromise fell through over disagreement on the top two spots.
Stolhandske said Haley encouraged him to set up a ticket to oppose the Focus ticket for a more democratic election.
Haley remembers the conversation differently. Stolhandske asked for advice on setting up a ticket, Haley said.
"I told him I would be more than happy to talk about campaigns," Haley said, but claims he didn't encourage Stol-handske's plan.
'Conspiracy theory'
A well-accepted indicator of campaign support is the opinion of the Freshman Leadership Organization, which gets freshmen involved in SG campaigns and helps train them for campus politics.
Matt Ross, FLO director, said the organization's manpower and excitement have driven single-ticket victories.
"Once the kids that are in FLO got involved, the ones that got involved at a high level ... made a huge difference in the Students First campaign and the Focus campaign," Ross said.
For both campaigns, a clear majority of the organization stood behind the winning ticket, Ross said. In previous years, the group was more divided.
"The freshmen, they're eager, they're enthusiastic, they work hard," he said. "If you can get them all on your side, that's a huge advantage.
"That's also why ... every year, you see the ticket that doesn't have the majority of FLO complains, because they don't have the advantage."
Ross, who also ran in Students First, won a two-year, at-large seat with Focus. Chaney, the SG president-elect, is a former FLO officer.
"The general classification, it seems, during campaigns, is that FLO ... decides campaigns," Chaney said. "I think there's been a big conspiracy theory about the whole FLO thing, and it's been taken out of hand."
Officers can't tell their charges whom to support, Ross said, but the network of friendships throughout FLO and SG is strong enough to get a large team of freshmen behind a particular ticket.
Reprezent leaders say FLO is a breeding ground for winning SG tickets.
The ticket got on FLO's bad side in February with a flier critical of the $4,000 expense of an SG retreat. A second flier criticized the amount of fee money SG appropriated to FLO.
The first flier included pictures of two FLO officers, in bathing suits on an SG retreat, who supported Focus. One of those officers told the Election Supervisory Board that Reprezent candidate Andrew Dobbs pointed her out to others. Dobbs was penalized and wrote an apology printed in the Texan.
Silent majority
By the time of its annual debate, FLO was not happy with Reprezent, said Marc Eichen-baum, who moderated the debate.
"It doesn't take a genius to try to figure out what FLO's opinion was at the time, when a ticket came out against them," said Eichenbaum, SG external financial director.
The debate still angers Reprezent. Eichenbaum asked questions mainly to Reprezent and Focus, rather than to the smaller, lesser-known tickets. Many of his questions concerned Reprezent's attacks on SG leadership.
"When I was asked to moderate the debate, I was neutral," said Eichenbaum, who ended up supporting Focus.
With a 15-minute time limit and all presidential candidates present, he said, he had to concentrate on the tickets people wanted to know about: Focus and Reprezent. He thought pointed questions also were necessary.
"Their platforms were pretty identical," he said. "The only questions [that needed] to be asked were about the controversial issues, and the controversial issues had been raised by Reprezent."
As a member of the SG executive board, he felt the venom of the Reprezent fliers.
"I had to defend Student Government," he said. "I had to ask difficult questions that had not been asked at previous debates, questions that were controversial at the time."
Near the end of campaigning, Eichenbaum spoke supportively at a Focus rally.
More gradually, it became obvious that most of SG was behind Focus.
"Members of the executive board were supporting Focus," said George, the Reprezent presidential candidate. "If they want to support a candidate, I have no problem with that. I, personally, wouldn't do it."
Eichenbaum said he saw two other executive officers wearing Focus pins.
Chaney said Reprezent's critical messages may have motivated members who were complacent to start wearing Focus T-shirts.
"I don't know I ever made the [connection] till the end that most of the representatives were for us," Chaney said.
'Insider's club'
Durham told SG members Reprezent plans a lawsuit regarding Election Supervisory Board decisions. The ticket has alleged SG leaders manipulated the ESB to rule against them (see accompanying story).
But while the group exhausts its election board appeals, SG's sharp divisions are visible.
Gladney-Lemon, the graduate representative who tried to stop Durham from walking out of the assembly Tuesday, thinks Reprezent raised questions that SG should consider. She wants to keep attendance and voting records online and form an ad-hoc committee on making SG more accountable.
"Brent Chaney got 55 percent of the vote," Gladney-Lemon said. "That's wonderful, but that means 45 percent was voting for someone who was calling for reform."
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