All over Washington D.C. scandals have erupted showing how corrupt elected officials can be. Corruption isn’t reserved to just Washington, however. Executive officers of the Student Association — DuJuan Smith, Daniel Jaquez, Aaron Langguth and Andrew Nelms — are just as immoral as Richard Nixon.

Last April, the College Republicans held its yearly officers election. I was once a proud member of the group and decided to run for vice chairman because I didn’t like the direction the group had taken under the leadership of Chairman Nelms.

On election night, then-Black Student Union president Smith arrived to the CR election with 25 to 30 BSU members, who voted against my ticket and for Nelms’ handpicked successors, including Langguth as chairman. These students were not CR members and had no problem voting for who they were told to.

How could they vote if they weren’t members? Nelms said the CR constitution stated that any person who showed up to a CR-sponsored event could vote in a CR election.

According to Nelms, the BSU members attended a debate between the College Democrats and the College Republicans, which gave them voting eligibility, even though none of them attended other CR events. (It is worth noting that many of the BSU members at the CR election booed and heckled the CR participants at this debate.)

Smith, now president of the SA, denied the allegations, saying the students from the BSU came of their own accord.

“I didn’t bring anyone to any meetings,” Smith said. “The individuals that were present attended a debate in the fall semester. They made their voting decision based on their views from the debate. To my knowledge, they attended an event and voted as the rules stated. The students who came didn’t come with me. Some might have just identified them with me, but that’s not the case.”

Why bring this up a year later? Well, at the time I thought it was an isolated event. The alliance between BSU and CR leaders seemed to only affect the College Republicans. But lately I’ve seen signs that this crooked coalition affects all of NIU.

Mike Celis, former SA senator and former vice chairman of the CR, called the alliance “an unlikely one extending into the Student Association.”

“The CR leaders need the BSU for votes to get elected into higher offices,” Celis said. “They know the BSU provides enough votes to get them elected, as proven with last year’s officers elections where the party of Smith, Jaquez, Langguth and Nelms won.”

The SA handles NIU student fees used to fund certain college organizations. My question is, if the SA is led by dishonest people, what kind of injustices are going on behind students’ backs?

“They seem to have their own agenda, and since students don’t care about the SA, they can get away with it,” said first-year Senator Elsa Resendiz. “Many senators agree with them because it’s pointless to disagree. They will do what they want anyways.”

Resendiz’s words are backed by a letter to the editor the Northern Star printed March 29, 2005. Former SA senator Douglas Reisinger wrote, “the small coalition of students have been able to circumvent all separation of powers, marginalize student opinion and thus pass legislation that allocated ludicrous amounts of student fees to hopeless projects. The Smith, Jaquez, Langguth, Nelms ticket only cares about one thing: Power.”

Even though these individuals come from the BSU and CR, it is important to note these groups as a whole are full of dedicated, hard-working members not involved with the sleazy activities of their leaders.

It is high time the NIU students hold these people accountable. Abraham Lincoln once said, “We, the People are the rightful masters of Congress; not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution.”

The time for apathy has gone. An independent ethics commission free from SA influence is needed to investigate the current executive officers and the SA as a whole. Only by doing so will NIU better ensure the highest standards of moral and ethical decency among our elected student offices.