I missed this story on Thursday about the vain attempts of External VP Josh Fryday to establish a more-heavily student dominated District in the redistricting game the Berkeley City Council plays.

Kudos go to Mr. Fryday for being so tenacious. Out of all four Executives this year I ranked him first for effort. But this is a lost cause for even the most capable External VP, for thousands of thousands of reasons. Here's the three most important:

1. Students have no political clout

The way to win the game is to have either a small group of very tenacious activists, IE most of the neighborhood groups, or a reasonably large group of vaguely discontented people, IE most of the school-related stuff. Cal has a very, very large group of people who don't give the slightest damn. Every City Council member knows that Fryday walks into their office without any significant backing, no matter how well he hides it. It shows in the way Fryday is reduced to pleading the fairness of it all, instead of a more powerful arbitrating position.

2. The ASUC is being too threatening

Here's where I think the ASUC is screwing up. They haven't defined their goal as enlarging the power of students, but as the much more ambitious one of installing a Student on the City Council. Sounds great for students, but there's the tricky fact that for a student to get on, someone else has to lose. In a remarkably tense atmosphere like the City Council, barging in without popular support in favor of the 'Get Rid of One of You Bastards' plan isn't a great idea.

Not only that, but Fryday seems to think the current rep, Kriss Worthington, should be pleased that we're trying to unseat him.

1."This whole process is run by people who are only concerned with keeping themselves in power," Fryday said.

"The ballot amendment, Fryday said, may give Worthington a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of Fryday and the ASUC."

3. Kriss Worthington is smart

Not only is the ASUC actively attempting to overthrow a member of the City Council, but they're trying to overthrow the most powerful member on it. Kriss Worthington, the current representative of the foreseen 'student district,' is the unofficial leader of the controlling Progressive faction. Let me say that again: out of nine possible targets, Fryday is taking on the most powerful of the nine. Just in terms of pure power politics, this would pretty much guarantee failure.

(Not to blame Fryday for this; it's pure coincidence that the only district capable of being student-majority is also Worthington's. But it still hurts.)

Not only that, however, but Worthington has proven a master of talking out both sides of his mouth.

He could be honest and say something like 'Look, I do what I can to represent students. I go to Senate meetings, help with lighting up Southside, and generally do my job. But I'm not gonna participate in my own destruction vis a vis Redistricting, especially when I'm in a life and death struggle with the Moderates.'

But instead he's pretending to be utterly confused as to why this district thing just can't pass.

While Councilmember Kriss Worthington says he is UC Berkeley students' biggest ally on the council, he was one of the plan's biggest opponents. Worthington cast one of only two votes against the proposal.

"For something called a student plan, I'm sure it meant well but it wasn't practical," he said.

(I've seen some other mealy-mouthed quotes in earlier news stories that I'm too lazy to link to.)

Hopefully, Fryday's master plan is to ask high and settle for a reasonable increase in Worthington's district. That me might get. But a student-run district is a pipe dream for years yet.
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