University of Florida Student Government Treasurer, Paul Drayton, lashed out at TheRadikal.com during last night's Student Senate meeting -- only thing is, the elected leader wasn't physically at the meeting, he phoned in. Drayton, who receives a salary from Student Activity & Service Fees, is currently working a New York City internship while his very own auto-designated proxy manages the finances of one of the largest, most expansive student budgets, far exceeding $13 million.
Although Drayton is a member of the ruling Gator Party, I firmly believe that at least some of the 70 Gator senators (outnumbering the minority party by roughly seven times) disagree on principle with Drayton's decision to abandon his post. Senators are the rank-in-file of the Student Government, they are the blue collar meat & potatoes class of an institution largely associated with banquets and brass gavels and chocolate fountains. Silly party names and campaign rhetoric go out the wayside pretty quickly in these chambers -- when it's time to work, they All work. Drayton has a staff (senators don't), Drayton has an office (senators don't), and Drayton gets paid (senators don't). I think if the Treasurer is brought up on charges based on materially breaching the duty he assumed, that many of his own party would vote in favor of a just end, on principle.
But I also have no doubt that any impeachment proceeding would fail, though how miserably is the question. Who will risk standing up? Would a party risk laying it all on the line for what they believe to be just? Would they risk losing that one thread that keeps them on the R&A Committee? Would the lone senator(s) of the ruling party risk appointment and/or getting re-slated to rise in support of the few?
"Amazing, you scared the entire Senate into thinking we were bringing forth impeachment charges this week. Kappas turned out along with their little Kappa bunnies (or whatever the heck the girls are called). Senators were asking Eric, Sam, and Frank what to expect at Senate and the Alligator even called Sam to confirm. Senator Renfoe blasted your post about impeachment in public debate for 5 minutes while Paul delivered a long statement by speaker phone claiming you weren't worth attention and that O&B should not brought forth impeachment charges (apparently no one called him after public debate to let him know before his report that the party did not do anything)." -- Anonymous
Kudos to Sen. Renfoe for standing by what she believes in.
You should all take a lesson.
Just-In
A friend from the Gator camp has told TheRadikal.com that a few members of his/her party are "really on the line" at this point. I am, of course, doing my best to have this senator go public. Stay tuned.
30 comments:
The Gator Party is really dropping the ball when they forget to text Paul and tell him that he's not getting impeached before they let him make a fool of himself.
Paul's not the one being made to look the fool, that role has been left for the 50,000+ members of the Gator Nation, many of which are already largely indifferent to SG, left without a Chief Fiscal Officer for the entire summer.
This will surely win hearts & minds.
The GDI's don't have the guts to do what you're asking.
its sad that no one informed him of the issue before he made his statements however i DO think its funny how its brought up that he abandoned his post. interesting that all that is said about it is that its a New York internship yet i believe that he would not leave for just ANY INTERNSHIP and i believe it is wrong to chastise someone for ambition. One has to strike while the iron is hot especially an African American man faced with great opportunity.
Strike it after you finish what you've started. Be ambitious, but keep your integrity.
Please get your facts straight. Drayton has not received a salary since leaving for the internship. This point was made very clear during Senator Renfroe's speech.
It's amazing how the Gator Party just doesn't understand the O&B operation. If there's anything the indies have learned the hard way, it's operational security (and Sam's the one who always preaches it - even to the new candidates right after slating). He seems to be running the show this summer so if O&B does intend to do something, it would seem that the LAST people to know would be Gator, not the first.
I understand he may not have received pay since May, but the position is still a PAID post by Statute and I will continue to include that in my entries to relay just how high of a role is currently vacant at the University of Florida.
Service by Proxy is unacceptable and in my opinion (which is all this blog is, in addition to that of the readers) qualifies as abandonment.
I pray that Tommy Jardon, perhaps in the capacity that will define him best and serve to leave the most lasting testament to his work by the students, is actively organizing a united front to begin a process to Impeach Drayton and devising legislative tactics (e.g. Filibustering) to make a point in chambers.
Regardless if Drayton survives Impeachment and/or if the online-voting workhorses that got petitions with thousands of names were able somehow to get 10% of that number students to sign petitions demanding a vote of NO CONFIDENCE and hand-delivering copies to Alligator's editorial board and collectively yielding each cooperating Senator's 5 minutes of public debate to read each name of each student that signed before the STANDING SENATE and forcing each name of each student to be reflected in the minutes and video feeds, then I think a strong message will have been sent to all 50,000+ students of the Gator Nation and to us old dinosaurs in the Alumni community.
Tommy...don't let us down.
Anon 2:56 you are Sam Miorelli and I claim my five pounds.
I don't get this whole saga. I thought to be Treasurer or Senator or whatever in SG you had to be a full-time student.
If this internship in NYC getting him college credit? Is he taking some long-distance learning courses or something? If not, he's got a big problem.
Whether or not the self-decreed proxy is kosher (and I don't think it is), I think it's a good question whether Drayton is even considered the Treasurer anymore if he's not registered as a student for Summer C.
It's always something you weigh in December/January when running for these things - if there's any chance you'll not be a student for the summer, you don't run. Simple as that. It's one reason why I didn't run for office back in 2002, because I hoped to finish my degree and wasn't interested in post-bacc courses at the time.
Anyway, back to this proxy decree - that alone deserves impeachment by skirting around the Constitution and Statutes and creating an office out of nothing without Senate input.
So either way you look at it, this whole thing is a mess.
And frankly, Drayton could use the NYC internship far more post-graduation than he could this Student Government gig he clearly thinks is a fall-back position.
Interesting angle Ken. Sure would like to hear anything to that tune from the readers.
I also think we're witnessing a sign of the times. Used to be, you had a constituent requirement that prevented you from being at a key senate meeting and you took pains to vote by proxy -- it was highly criticized and considered poor form.
Nowadays you not only can get away with voting by proxy, hell, you can have the proxy do your whole job.
What a fine example to set.
Wait a second. I thought Drayton found a loophole in the statutes that allows him, as long as he doesn't receive a salary (which he isn't) from being on campus. If that is the case then he is absolutely within his rights to take the internship in NYC.
I don't understand....when people hang around in SG too long (like Marc Adler) they are criticized, and when an SGer has an educational opportunity that will significantly affect their future (Mierley, Drayton) they are also criticized. I guess there isn't anyone the Radikal won't criticize.
UF is run by Loopholes & Proxies...what the SG'ers of the other nine State University Schools must be saying.
We were once the Institution to be modeled after, slowly, as our stock plummets, so too do our standards.
OX is letting the system crumble around them, especially if senators jump ship to impeach Drayton. The system has fallen apart without JCB and Day.
ROFL; it started falling apart when JCB stepped aside to let Reilly run and Day decided to help him. Get your facts straight; neither Reilly nor Yooni are liked very much outside of SG. They are both no names and weak personalities. Kellie has done such a piss poor job this semester that her own wants her gone. When 15 to 20 Gator Senators side with O&B on votes then something is wrong.
Who the fuck has the JCB fetish on this website? I swear almost every post has a comment predicting the impending doom system party because hes no longer involved. With Day done the fear within the Gator Party of Miorelli is reaching a fever pitch. Senators are afraid to stand up and speak because they anticipate retribution from him within the legal system. Reilly and the Senate exec are literally paralyzed with fear. If any GDI has the power and tact to overwhelm the system by force its Sam. Hopefully Wolf can take Miorelli down, just like he did in the battle for party leader, in the scramble for the O&B nomination.
Dang! Drayton makes this blog again! That is like 3 times in two weeks! Okay I see you Mr. Drayton!
LOL! Its funny how there are over 250 positions in SG and Drayton is the only one that is making the Radikal.
He must be the only one doing something!
I'm writing to announce that we will be holding a special meeting of FBK this Thursday in order to talk about our merger with the F.I.S.T. Marshall Criser's ghost will be presiding, as I will be off haunting a part of the Jefferson building of the Library of Congress that night.
Why can't people post on the Impeach Paul Drayton blog!
3:35: LM did the right thing, PD is trying to have it both ways. Quit and do what is smarter.
Wolf take Sam down? Only if he crushed him with his ass.
Wolf has made the choice not to be part of the O&B party. No indie will follow him anywhere.
this whole thing is retarded to the max. the internship that Drayton landed himself in NYC trumps anything else that may be on his resume. in all reality he can delete almost everything else off of it aside from past real world experience. there are a lot of children of privilege at UF who have never applied for real jobs with corporations so let me clue you all in, most employers in interviews will be looking for you to qualify your resume lines, so Drayton would be wise to resign and forget the whole affair, because when an interviewer asks him about his time served as SBT and he hems and haws and can't even speak to much he did in the position that will hurt him.
"this whole thing is retarded to the max. the internship that Drayton landed himself in NYC trumps anything else that may be on his resume.
I seriously don't believe that Gator, O&B, and Independent senators could possibly side Paul's resume over the 50,000+ Student Body. Whoever is writing these comments, either wants to make the Gator Party seem indifferent to the Students - or - maybe many Gator Senators are actually going to eat this injustice and bear the burden of a disastrous treasurer to save face for the upcoming Fall elections.
I really think that if O&B stands up and loses Wolf - or - if brave Gator senators rise in protest of Drayton and suffer politcally, that the students will take notice.
Do you even know what the SBT does, Duque? It's not only mind-numbingly dull, but a trained monkey could do it. And Rene is about as close to a trained monkey as you're going to get in SG.
Not only is Paul not missing anything by being in NYC for the summer, but he'll easily be able to pick up where he left off when he gets back in August.
I have to say that the funniest aspect of this is that an alumni's blog is given the attention of two long-winded rants, by a senator and by the phoning-it-in SG Treasurer, as if you are the Wizard behind the curtain at Oz, when in reality, you're just an alumni with a blog.
Reacting as they did to what you say on TheRadikal.com is akin to Senator McConnell and President Bush holding up the State of the Union to blast something DailyKos said that morning.
What crack are you people smoking? Sam Miorelli is almost universally hated by both sides of the aisle, and has about as much tact as a drunk DZ wandering the halls of Theta Chi. He has never accomplished anything productive, and never will because he's too focused on mud-slinging and getting into the Alligator. Not to mention all the time it takes to try and figure out which gender he's attracted to this week.
There's a reason the indies never win, and it's because they allow themselves to be "led" by people like Sam and Tommy. Say all you want about how they're idealogical pioneers, Duque, but you've never actually interacted with them in SG, so you couldn't possibly understand.
Yes Christian, I am sure you are right. How could the 50,000+ students (most of whom have never heard of the SG Treasurer's office) not be offended that the treasurer was off in NYC at a FINANCIAL internship learning about the world of FINANCE from a company that, well, deals in FINANCE!
God forbid a student body treasurer actually know something about dollars and cents.
anon 312 you are completely missing the point; if Drayton had taken this internship LAST SUMMER then you're points would be excellent ones; the issue here is that Drayton, by running at in the first place, made a commitment to the student body to be there for them, to be their SBT; he committed to being a student LEADER, to be available to the treasurers of student orgs; he's not here, he's in NYC, he's not available to the treasurers of student orgs; at this point his pride is showing full force so I'm looking forward to a very spectacular fall.......
I should start a blog too!
I would be the Bruce Blog's biggest fan!
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