Going rogue

Joe Levin-Manning’s resignation as speaker of Student Congress comes at a questionable time.

Broadly, it is a loss for the student body and Congress. In his short tenure, he brought continuity to an important body despite being the cause of many of its problems.

Levin-Manning said he wanted to stress that he didn’t begin his job as speaker with the intention of resigning. He said he had every intention of continuing until the end of his term.

But he didn’t. And that’s a problem.

Levin-Manning was the only returning undergraduate to Congress this year — meaning that the body has lost significant institutional knowledge at the leadership level.

True, Levin-Manning will still be serving as a member of Congress. And he said that he will provide any assistance to members of Congress and the future speaker.

That’s admirable but not unexpected. The expectation should be that our elected officials remain in office for their full term.

Recently, Levin-Manning’s leadership has been overshadowed by a number of controversies.

There have been several procedural issues and lawsuits that deal with decisions he made.

But rather than dealing with these issues as speaker, Levin-Manning chose to resign. This wasn’t the right move.

Now wasn’t a good time for Levin-Manning to leave his leadership post. In addition to cleaning up the mess he helped create, Congress will face the additional challenge of dealing with a shake-up of leadership.

Levin-Manning said that his situation has changed from when he took the position and that he wanted the role to go to someone with fewer distractions.

He also emphasized that he wanted Congress to have a smooth spring semester.

That makes sense.

But it shakes our confidence in Levin-Manning for any future positions he might seek in student government. Our leaders must ride through storms and prioritize correctly.

Levin-Manning’s situation might have changed, but he should have stuck it out and continued as speaker.

Congress would be better off with the same leader all year than a mid-year abrupt change.