Editorial: USAC Judicial Board shouldn’t rule in favor of Social Justice Referendum
By Editorial Board
May 5, 2016 1:14 a.m.
Update: The Undergraduate Students Association Council Judicial Board ruled in favor of the Election Board Thursday morning.
The referendum process has long been an attempt at direct democracy. With a petition and a cause, any group of students can put an initiative on the ballot to be judged by voters.
Unfortunately, poor enforcement allows this process to be distorted.
This year, the Social Justice Referendum campaign spent more than $7,400 on marketing, nearly 10 times the mandatory campaign spending limit of $750. It also failed to disclose the sources of nearly $3,400 of funding until late Tuesday night. Its representatives signed forms at a candidate orientation acknowledging the spending limit long before campaign season started.
As a result of overspending, Social Justice Referendum supporters were barred by the USAC Election Board from campaigning for part of Monday and were asked to either return all but $750 worth of materials or allow them to be confiscated. Representatives of the referendum did not cede materials, prompting the election board to issue an all-day campaign freeze Tuesday.
These sanctions were strict enough to help level the playing field, but too complicated to enforce, leaving room for Social Justice Referendum representatives to circumvent them.
Social Justice Referendum representative Jazz Kiang then initiated a petition to the USAC Judicial Board against the sanctions, claiming the spending cap he agreed to was unfair. The election board suspended all sanctions against the referendum while the judicial board heard the case, and is now in the process of making a decision.
If the judicial board rules in favor of the Social Justice Referendum, in future years spending caps will officially become meaningless. Alternatively, if the judicial board rules in favor of the election board, then the election board will be able to implement its earlier sanction and pick a new date for campaign materials to be turned in.
Deciding in favor of the election board should be an easy decision. The campaign’s argument hinges on the idea that each of the entities represented in the measure should be treated as their own referendum, thus allowing the campaign to spend $750 on each line item. But the campaign representatives had already agreed in writing to spend a grand total of $750. No reasonable argument can be made to support their egregious overspending.
Once the judicial board makes that decision, the election board must reinstate its sanction, suspend the referendum campaigning and require the return of all campaign materials within 24 hours. If these conditions are not met, the election board will only have one possible way of remedying the situation: disqualify the Social Justice Referendum from this year’s ballot.
In the meantime, the referendum has been able to use its abundant campaign materials while counting down the hours until election results are announced. Even if the sanctions are eventually reinstituted for the final hours of the election, a majority of votes will already have been cast, and those votes will have been influenced by the outrageously expensive campaign the Social Justice Referendum has been allowed to run so far.
The democratic process only works when everyone is on a level playing field, but the Social Justice Referendum’s advantage has grown past the point of recovery. This type of advantage is why spending caps were created in the first place; it was a change instituted by last year’s election board in an effort to reform a referendum process that privileged some students with access to off-campus donors and large pocketbooks. Every USAC member voted to approve the change. This includes Heather Rosen, former Financial Supports commissioner and current USAC president, who now is supporting Kiang’s petition to exempt the Social Justice Referendum from that very rule.
The Social Justice Referendum’s representatives have shown cavalier disregard for previously agreed-upon election regulations, and an unethical willingness to use political manipulation to get what they want.
If the judicial board and election board do not act swiftly to put an end to these antics, it will leave those who followed the rules at a disadvantage and set a poor precedent for future groups who have grievances with campaign codes.
