By Laura OlsonThe Daily Northwestern

Associated Student Government, you really let me down last week. An opportunity to stand up for your constituents came, and you knew it. The Evanston City Council wanted to give the city’s landlords more power, possibly hurting dozens of off-campus students. You even showed up to the Oct. 9 meeting to defend your brothers and sisters.

But when the time came, you kept your mouths shut.

Aren’t you guys the ones who enjoy politics and government? The ones who get a thrill from the rapid-fire debate and idealism of it all? Unfortunately, there wasn’t any debate at all on the topic, as the aldermen passed the ordinance without a word.

I had faith in you. I believed that the senators learned from last year’s midnight bar ban debacle. Only after hearing of the passage of an amendment kicking those under 21 out of alcohol-serving establishments at midnight did ASG begin to pay attention to the issue.

I’ll give them credit. Students took the time to look at the rules of the game and were able to effect change for (mainly) upstanding reasons, such as preserving philanthropic bar nights.

But going in after the amendment had passed to ask aldermen to change it showed a lack of understanding of how the government works and presented the students as whiny and immature. (Just how accurate this impression might be is a separate debate.)

ASG members, out of all students, should have an idea about how city government works. You don’t even have to wait for the Evanston Review to come out on Thursdays to find out the results – we publish them the day after each of the council’s biweekly meetings.

If you can’t wait until morning, there’s at least one blog out in cyberspace – evanstonnow.com – that often has vote outcomes posted within hours, or even minutes, of each meeting’s end.

ASG senators have been chosen by their fellow students to represent their interests at NU, not as delegates to the city, although that’s an interesting concept.

But these students have the skills to represent, debate and navigate through red tape. Perhaps more importantly, this is the real version of what student senators say they love and aspire to do. It’s politics, baby – even if they spend six months on beekeeping.

Former ASG President Patrick Keenan-Devlin recognized that. He spent part of his Evanston days working on Cheryl Wollin’s successful campaign for First Ward alderman, which became the hottest part of the election and resulted in a year-and-a-half of lawsuits. What political buff doesn’t love a good scandal?

I’m not asking ASG to go to every meeting. Hearing politicians-in-training take the citizen comment microphone each session would dilute the impact of their presence and probably irritate the aldermen who do speak politely to NU. All I’m asking is for student representatives to pay attention.

Each ordinance goes through at least one committee before it is introduced to the council and then put up for action. The process takes at least a month, even for issues that command strong support. That’s plenty of time to write a letter, make a phone call or at least e-mail one of the aldermen.

It’s not too much to ask for those involved in campus current affairs to be aware of the news around them. After all, city decisions impact them as much as anyone.

Or maybe we should just start putting the important headlines in the crossword puzzle.

City Editor Laura Olson is a Medill junior. She can be reached at [email protected].