After a week of blissfull absence, ASUO Senate meetings resume today. To lighten the mood, I humbly submit the resignation letter of a short-lived Con Court Justice, Jeremy Riel. Reading this for the second time, I find it funny that he was so turned off by the debate over Senate rules, when despite Jared reading this letter aloud to the Senate, the benchmark debates became far more rancorous and divisive. Enjoy!

Hey Jared and Juliana,

I would have delivered this to you in person, but I am swamped today
with lots of writing assignments that I need to get done. I hope you
receive this before the senate meeting to prevent yourselves some
undue stress, but this was the soonest I could get on the computer.

I have been thinking a lot this past week about the position of
Constitution Court Justice and my filling that office. I have been
weighing school, family, and other potential activities that I would
perhaps like to pursue, and have decided that I would like to formally
withdraw my application from consideration for the position. After
attending the senate meeting on Wednesday last week, I witnessed
something that really turned me off – unnecessary internal struggle in
an organization that should be working together, especially in the
midst of a potentially productive legislative session for students. I
have always had an idealistic view of how student governments should
operate, and don’t see my involvement in the organization as a
positive use of my time right now. Don’t get me wrong, you and Juliana
both know that I am extremely committed to student advocacy and
improving the education system in Oregon. However, I will work with
organizations that will help exact the most progress, and I don’t feel
that my involvement as a Constitution Court Justice would fulfill my
desire to help students, especially in an environment where I would be
required to mediate between internal struggles. This is my senior
year, and I would like to enjoy it without excessive stress.

If an opportunity arises where I can help make positive advances for
students, I will be right there beside you. I will be glad to work
with your lobbying efforts of the legislature starting in January. I
have faith that the ASUO can do great things this year.

Just to prevent misunderstanding, I will not be attending the senate
meeting tonight. I am not a particular fan of being used as a pawn by
an organization to attack others, like what happened last week. Thank
you for understanding and I hope that you aren’t too upset by my
important decision (and believe me, I tossed it around all week back
and forth). Thank you very much for the opportunity to serve, and I
hope that we can work together in the future.

Sincerely,

Jeremy Riel

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 at 09:22 by Niedermeyer and is filed under ASUO, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.