Furthermore, there is evidence that Driskell--who claimed a broad popular mandate for her progressive agenda after easily winning the election--lost much of her political capital by loyally defending Burton.

Initially, sponsors of the impeachment bill accused Driskell of "playing the race card" in her statements to the press, saying she insinuated the impeachment of Burton, who is black, by 10 white council members may have been racially motivated.

Driskell maintained her comments were taken out of context and that the impeachment was politically, not racially, motivated.

Three of the impeachment bill's 10 sponsors ran for president against Driskell, and seven attended a Republican Club dinner four days before the impeachment trial.

Yet even Driskell supporters acknowledged she should have handled the race question differently.

Driskell and opponents publicly reconciled, but Driskell-backed council projects have not received kind treatment from conservatives.

Driskell opponents loudly protested the council's Spirit Week--during which students and Faculty were encouraged to wear theme clothing--as juvenile and bound to fail.

And according to Driskell, they did not cooperate with her plan to conduct a campus-wide survey intended to identify student concerns.

A group of conservatives tried to slash funding for the project, known as Census 2000. When this failed, they haggled with Driskell over individual census questions.

The result for both Spirit Week and Census 2000 was low student participation. To date, Driskell has only collected about 70 of 500 census forms.

Driskell says that although she "still feel[s] some resistance," she keeps her optimistic outlook.

"At the end of the day, all we are is students trying to do things for students," she says.

Back to Square One

Council debate once again centered on the question of whether it should primarily agitate for improved student services or progressive political causes--two sides that are often, for simplicity, called liberal and conservative.

With Driskell in the chair, the council passed statements urging the University to act on labor and environmental issues, police brutality and sexual violence--each time with the opposition of council conservatives.

Conservatives point to the success of initiatives like universal keycard access and UC Books, the council's online textbook-selling service, as signs the council should only focus on student services.