 During ASUC election season you probably encounter potential candidates fighting for your vote every time you walk to class, but for the rest of the school year, the actions of the ASUC stay mostly out of sight, out of mind. You may hear of party conflicts stemming from within our student government, but how do these conflicts arise and what impact do they have on students? From a student perspective, there have recently been a variety of conflicts amongst the different parties at play within the ASUC. We talked to representatives serving varying roles within student government about party divides and gridlock. I think one misconception is that contentious debate is parties not coming together, but in reality I think the contentious debate is necessary to set the foundation so that we can ultimately come together on issues. Ideological differences between parties may give off the apparent that little gets accomplished, but these differences inspire collaboration and eventually compromise. There's a partisanship can come up, but that isn't something that execs really experience on the day-to-day functioning of their offices. We are very much more project-oriented, long-term visioning-oriented. However, these disagreements can be detrimental at times. What I think it becomes an issue is when we are prevented from doing important things that continue the functionality of the ASUC. So when there is gridlock that stops our productivity, that stops action from happening, I think that's where it gets unhealthy. For example, elected AAVP Jeanette Corona stepped down at the start of this semester, which ignited a contested discussion amongst senators. Vannear Mesh, a student action senator, provided some insight. Student action and council have about the same amount of senators in the Senate, but then in the executive aspect, executive officers wise, there are three executive officers that are council and only one that stood in action. So naturally speaking, when the AAVP dropped this year, there came an opportunity and a tendency for student action to want to push its own members. ASUC interactions become less accessible to students when important ASUC decisions like this one are conducted without transparency. We uncovered some information about how the AAVP selection process was conducted. The first committee meeting was notified, it wasn't even put in the day like how no publicity whatsoever, held on a Saturday morning, 9 a.m., with 24 hours notice. The second committee meeting was on a game day at 3 p.m., conveniently during the game. So I mean, just kind of from a student perspective, this really looks not transparent. I think that this is also an issue. If this is someone who's representing 25,000 students, this should have been a widely publicized event and important with student input involved. Despite some of these obstacles, the ASUC as a whole is working to make bipartisan improvements to benefit the student body. It's also important to keep our eyes on some of the bigger picture issues, which is really tuition and how that affects the resources that we have, what it means for students to be part of conversations and be part of decision making on campus. And until we really address these two and effectively insert ourselves into different conversations, we're going to continue to have tuition rise. With tuition hikes at the forefront of people's minds, the students will be looking to the ASUC as a unified body to represent the student voice and continue to effectively combat issues.