Senate!

The big news from the Senate so far: Both the university campus and the city are indicating a ZERO TOLERANCE policy towards chalking during the campaign season. My experience with zero tolerance policies is that they tend to be at least four or five tolerance in practice. I'm not sure this is actually any different than previous years.

In response, Lyell Sakaue proposed a bill to add to the agenda packet (illegally, if you ask me, but the Senate seems to be allowing anything) to ban chalking in the ASUC campaign rules. It does seem like the non-dick thing to do, though it won't take effect until next election. If the recess-arguing is any indication, Sakaue and Christina Oatfield like the idea, and Tara Raffi does not. I dunno whether this indicates how CalSERVE and Student Action feel more generally.

Speaking of campaign violations, the Attorney General takes the position that the reason he can file charges after the good faith filing deadline is the By-Law which reads:

Preliminary ballot tabulation shall commence within 24 hours following the good faith filing deadline for elections violations. This section does not prohibit the filing of new charges by the Election Council or Attorney General for Campaign Violations occurring after the commencement of ballot tabulation.

There are, however, other sections in the universe, so it's an odd basis for the claim. For instance, the Judicial Rules of Procedure say:

Election violation cases are considered filed in good faith if they are originally filed before 4 p.m. on the Tuesday following the close of polls.

There's no exception for the Attorney General, and it's not in "this section" as the By-Law states. Now, the Judicial Council has the authority to say that the case is in good faith anyway, but that authority applies no matter who files, even if it's not the Attorney General.

posted by Beetle Aurora Drake 3/11/2009 09:27:00 PM #
Comments (6)

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Comments:

Isn't the AG trying to invalidate the election? "Cases to invalidate an election are considered filed in good faith if they are filed within seven days after the election count." That would be tomorrow.

# posted by  Anonymous : 10:02 PM, March 11, 2009

 

I haven't seen the charge sheet, so he may be. But the Daily Cal claimed that he is charging the proponents with falsifying information, which is a campaign violation.

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 10:05 PM, March 11, 2009

 

The "good faith" rule doesn't exclude other ways of establishing "good faith." It just says that they are considered so if they make it in by 4 pm. If a violation happens after Tuesday at 4, and the charge is brought quickly, it would still pass muster.

# posted by  Anonymous : 10:12 PM, March 11, 2009

 

Typically. But the violation here occurred with the voters' guide, which occurred before the election.

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 10:15 PM, March 11, 2009

 

If there was no way to know what was in the guide was false, and he filed within a decent amount of time after finding the video, I would think that would satisfy the "good faith" test. It's one of those rules that is written to make it sound uber-binding, black and white, but once you put it to practical application, doesn't really mean a whole lot.

# posted by  Anonymous : 10:26 PM, March 11, 2009

 

But he got it from Moghtader. Folks who turn in stuff to the Attorney General to file charges on don't get to ignore the good faith deadline because they use a proxy. A group can't sit on all their evidence and then give it to the AG after the deadline.

Or maybe they can, like I said, the Judicial Council can do what they want on it. But I think it would be an injustice to allow it.

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 10:29 PM, March 11, 2009

 

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