By: Editor-in-Chief Connor J. Toth & Chief Judge Shalom Samuels
In the grand tradition of student government, where every debate is treated like it’s life or death and the stakes are somewhere between trivial and “I have an opinion on this,” our Student Bar Association (SBA) has somehow convinced itself that we need a full-blown three-branch system. That’s right. Even if you haven’t heard of it, we have our very own Supreme Court — because if no other law school in the area has one, why shouldn’t we? Maybe it’s time to ask: do we really need to mimic the federal government to manage a $150,000 budget and advocate for our peers? Or can we finally cut the drama and get back to basics?
Let’s talk about the Senate — the place where aspiring politicos cut their teeth, treating SBA elections like a stepping stone to the actual Senate floor. We’ve all seen it — candidates running campaigns as if their future Supreme Court nomination depends on it, endless debates over the finer points of the SBA bylaws, and grandstanding that’s more about personal glory than student advocacy. But let’s be real. The SBA isn’t supposed to be a platform for flexing political muscles, dramatic posturing, and hyping egos. Rather, its purposes are to distribute funds to student groups, plan a couple parties, and advocate for the student body.
You may think we’ve always had a three-branch system with separation of powers and whatnot, but it wasn’t introduced until 2004. At the time, the SBA was a simple board of students who helped organize the student organizations and events. A 2L representative, Jason Karasik, introduced the three-branch system — substantially copying the U.S. Constitution word-for-word — to try to bring checks and balances to our student government. What it’s actually done is create a playground where politicking overshadows purpose, and our real issues — like insufficient physical facilities, career center advising, and mental health resources — get lost in a sea of procedural disputes and confusion. The Senate spends more time on who has the floor or whose toes they hypothetically might be stepping on than on what really matters to students. And let’s not forget about impeachment — a process that’s absurdly overblown for a student government. If the SBA doesn’t want its President, a simple two-thirds vote should suffice to make a change. We don’t need the drama of impeachment; it’s student government, not a constitutional crisis.
Our Student Bar Association is even more complicated than the actual American Bar Association (ABA). The ABA doesn’t need three branches to effectively serve its members, so why are we pretending our student government needs the pomp and circumstance of a full-scale federal constitutional model? It’s as if we are trying to overcompensate for something by making our governance unnecessarily complex.
Imagine a world where SBA meetings are as straightforward as ordering coffee — decisions made quickly and everyone focused on what really matters. With a single governing board, the SBA could cut the unnecessary theatrics, avoid the Senate’s procedural circus, eliminate redundancy, and actually do what it’s there to do. With one unified board, every voice is heard, every decision is collective, and we wouldn’t have to wait for one branch to untangle itself from its own red tape while another gets lost in ancillary disputes. We’d be back to basics, where the focus is on student needs rather than proving who can best navigate a convoluted system.
The SBA’s mission is straightforward — advocate for students, plan events, and manage our money. We don’t need a three-ring circus to do that. By simplifying our structure, we can turn the SBA back into a tool for meaningful action rather than a playtime stage for political theatrics. Let’s face it, the real world doesn’t need more bureaucracy or unnecessary drama. Neither do we. It’s time to rethink the three-branch system and explore a simpler, more effective way to serve our community. Because, honestly, if we’re the only law school with a Supreme Court and a Senate that thinks it’s Congress, maybe that’s a sign we’re taking ourselves just a little too seriously.
