Monday, October 16, 2006
Mr./Ms. Senator, you've been had
This is the last attempt I'm going to make to persuade those who got their information from Student Action that they have been lied to. If you think a senator you know would be interested, be sure to direct them here.
Judging from Ali's explanation, he was lied to by Student Action. The biggest lie is that Student Action had to hire a lawyer because it had run out of options. This is simply not true. I'll use Jeremy's timeline to help illustrate:
May 9: ASUC v. SAES is heard, in which Attorney General Nathan Royer charges SA Executives with campaign violations for chalking. In the course of the hearing, SA spokesperson/chair Suken Vakil claims that chalk only lasts one day.
May 12: The Judicial Council issues 3 censures. Ben Narodick appeals, but his appeal is denied.
May 24: The votes are counted. The Judicial Council has not yet certified the results (it normally waits a week), and the presumptive executives are not yet elected and don't have the right to serve.
May 31: Andy Ratto files a new case alleging that Suken lied in the previous hearing. This is not an appeal.
June 7: Andy's case is heard.
June 14: The Judicial Council disqualifies the SA Executives.
According to the Ali's explanation, this is the point that Student Action is claiming it was out of options and had to hire a lawyer, but this is simply false. The constitution guarantees a right to appeal internally, and it's not like the Executive Slate was ignorant of this, because it went ahead and appealed.
June 21: An appeal charge sheet is filed by Vishal Gupta, and accepted by the Judicial Council, and an appeal hearing is scheduled.
July 15: The appeal is heard.
July 29: The Judicial Council overturns itself, reinstating the executives. It certifies the election results shortly.
Note that the Judicial Council reversed itself based on internal rules, not because what it did earlier was illegal. The Judicial Council is not a court of law, and cannot make determinations on whether something is legal or illegal according to state/federal law.
Also note that the lawyers that SA hired did not actually impact the process. SA admits that the Judicial Council completely ignored recommendations from the lawyers, so they had no impact on the Judicial Council process that eventually put the SA Executives into office. Not only was hiring a lawyer not their only choice, it wasn't even a successful one.
I hope that I'm not wrong about these senators, and that they're only voting for this because they've been lied to about the events of the summer. If any of them want to discuss this in more detail, my AIM and e-mail are up in the upper right corner, and I can e-mail my phone number, too.
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