“If we were going to print it, we’d walk three steps to the printer outside of our doors [in the SA office].” -A.J. Piwarun, SRG president and SA Senate deputy speaker

Two prominent Student Association (SA) members have confirmed their involvement with Students for Responsible Government (SRG), a formerly underground organization and possible future student government political party that was made public last week after a document alleging the organization’s platform was found on a shared Union printer. A.J. Piwarun, deputy speaker of the SA Senate, and Tyler Draheim, SA Senate Appropriations Committee chair, said in an interview Wednesday that they were correctly identified on the document as the current President and Vice President of SRG.
While Piwarun and Draheim said much of the information on the document was accurate, they denied creating it or printing it.

“That’s completely false,” Draheim said when asked if he had written or printed the document.

“If we were going to print it,” Piwarun said, “we’d walk three steps to the printer outside of our doors [in the SA office].”

The document, which was brought to the Post by three anonymous sources and subsequently published in last week’s issue, was found on the third floor of the Union on a shared student organization printer.

The use of this printer is strictly limited to use by official student organizations, and SRG does not yet have this status. Furthermore, political use of the printer could be a breach of certain SA election bylaws and student organization rules.

Piwarun and Draheim said that the document could have been produced by someone attempting to assist them with SRG, or by someone trying to taint their names and disrupt their plans.

‘Potential party’ has interest among current SA members

The two leaders said they had been building interest in SRG among trusted SA members and other students through e-mails and face-to-face meetings. As many as 45 people from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, roughly one quarter of them belonging to the current SA, have received the e-mails.

The found document indicated that 27 of 40 SA Senate seats were accounted for by SRG. While Piwarun and Draheim said they had never actually thought of their support in terms of senators, Piwarun said the number was indeed demonstrative of their support. “We do have that much interest,” Piwarun said. “That’s not false.”

Draheim said they had wanted to wait to take the organization public until more of its staffing positions had been filled and its platform had been solidified. The platform launch date of 1/29/2008 listed on the document, then, was incorrect.

However, after the publication of the document, Piwarun and Draheim decided to clarify their conduct and intentions by meeting with the Post and providing reporters with written statements about SRG and the document that led to its uncovering.

SRG not necessarily opposed to SUFC

While the future of SRG is somewhat uncertain, Piwarun and Draheim said they do plan to have it legitimized as a student organization soon, and it may become a student government political party for the spring SA elections of 2008. All student government parties must be registered student organizations in order to participate in SA elections.

Draheim emphasized the fact that SRG is not a political party at this time, and its members are not necessarily opposed to Students United for Change (SUFC), the party currently holding SA office.

“We’ve gotten some bad looks from people in the office thinking we’re going to betray them or something,” Draheim said.

Both said SRG was not meant to be a betrayal of SUFC.

In their letters, Draheim and Piwarun state that they appreciate SUFC's work to limit spending but feel more must be done. SRG, they said, will be focused on lowering segregated fee amounts, reducing SA salary costs by cutting down the size of the executive cabinet and eliminating funding to resource centers by taking them out from under the Office of Student Life and thus out of the allocable fee process.

Both SA members said they plan to finish out their current term with SUFC and may even run with the party again if the opportunity arises.

Found document contained some correct, some incorrect information

Piwarun and Draheim said that much of the information on the found document was accurate, but there were also a few serious discrepancies.

They said that while they are the president and vice president of SRG for the purpose of creating the organization, they said this could change in the future. Some of the parenthetical names that were redacted from the published document were people Draheim said are interested in SRG, though some of them are people they hadn’t yet spoken with.

Draheim said that Allyson Wartick, named as Chief of Staff on the document, has expressed interest in SRG, but has not been officially given a position. Contrary to the document, nothing about a campaign coordinator has been established at this time.

Of the ‘Campaign Ideas’ listed on the document, SRG does not want to repeal cuts to resource centers or bring in liberally minded people, though Piwarun said students of all political leanings are welcome to join SRG.

SRG also has no interest in getting bike racks on buses or ensuring equal money expenditures to student organizations.

Amanda Throm, Jonathan Anderson and Ryan Cardarella contributed to this report.

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