Journalism!!!

As you can see, I'm reporting on the Judicial Council hearings at 10pm. This in spite of the fact that the first hearing, AG v. SA ran long. You'll see in the next post, but for this one, I'll just talk about the chalking suit.

As far as actual arguments go, I've pretty much covered it already, so here are some of the hearing high(low)lights (horrendous ones in bold):

A full 30 minutes was spent trying to figure out which pictures were admissable evidence. Since the stuff in the pictures ended up undisputed, it was pretty wasteful.

Suken Vakil accused Election Council chair Jessica Wren of perjury. He was complaining about how she was working with the plaintiff (Attorney General Nathan Royer), and was therefore untrustworthy or something. "Collusion" was used.

Vakil made the argument that candidates can't be expected to send everyone to polls to make sure things were proper. While this is in true for many candidates, hearing it from the Student Action chair was kind of silly.

Vakil claimed that because the Judicial Council hadn't ruled their action to be a violation, they didn't know that it was. The implication, of course, is that no violation could ever be committed knowingly.

Vakil first claimed that the purpose of chalking is to be seen chalking, rather than for it to be seen while it's on the cement. This is apparently why they go out chalking at 2 in the morning. He eventually relented and mentioned name recognition, but insisted that name recognition is unnecessary by the time elections roll around.

Vakil also claimed that chalk doesn't normally last longer than a day, claiming to "not know" why it's still sitting out there today.

Vakil: "I don't think the Senate would pass superfluous language [in the by-laws]." I could play the "infinitely-recursive censure" card, but do I really need to?

Vakil also said that a disqualification is too harsh, considering the cirumstances. It would undermine the democratic process, you see, and would make the next candidate have no legitimacy. Otherwise, had the SQUELCH! candidates won, they would've been taken totally seriously.

I'll admit that I'm impressed by the straight face Vakil presented for the entire hearing. I also predict no censures.

posted by Beetle Aurora Drake 5/09/2006 09:58:00 PM #
Comments (5)

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Comments:

Even with this un-credible double talk from Mr. Vakil that you report, why do you still predict no censures?

# posted by  jimf : 10:45 PM, May 09, 2006

 

Am I to understand they didn't even contest that they did the chalking???(!!!) They must really not take the Council seriously.

"Yeah, we did it, but its not like you're gonna kick us out or anything, here, eat this BS I just defecated in front of you."

# posted by  Anonymous : 6:42 AM, May 10, 2006

 

No, they did contest that they did the chalking. They said they had done it beforehand, so it wasn't active campaigning on their part, and actually, they weren't sure if they had done it because someone else could've done it, or something. My earlier post went over the brief in detail, and Vakil followed it.

Nathan pointed out that they didn't disown the chalking within 24 hours of notification, though, as is stated in the by-laws.

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 11:33 AM, May 10, 2006

 

I predict three censures

# posted by  Andy : 1:09 PM, May 10, 2006

 

When are they ruling?

# posted by  jimf : 3:03 PM, May 10, 2006

 

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