There's some question over the La Voz thing about what offense was committed and how it relates to the Berkeley Jewish Journal last year. As a refresher, the BJJ endorsed Daniel Frankenstein but escaped punishment for it, despite committing the #1 violation possible in an ASUC-Sponsored publication.

Their defense was, first, that the ASUC Publications Advisor had assured them that this was legal, so not really their fault. Second, that they hadn't spent ASUC funds on 'this issue' so it was okay.

That this loophole continues to exist amazes me. The question should be 'Could they have published this WITHOUT having ASUC funds?' The answer is clearly 'no.' Without ASUC Funds they wouldn't have money past October. In other words, access to ASUC money clearly made the Frankenstein endorsement possible, and that should clearly indicate misuse of funds. It was also used for the 54 spending exemption, and I can only imagine the loophole still exists because it's convenient. Also, no one ever TRIED to attack the BJJ for it, so it was never brought up before the Judicial Council.

Returning to the La Voz example...

It doesn't appear like CalSERVE did anything illegal, looking at the article. Illegallity requires that they 'solicited' the endorsement. It doesn't look from the article like they were aware of it. There's no quotes from CalSERVE people and all the photos are publicily available on their website. But it's self-evident that La Voz broke the rules. Squelch lost all ASUC Funding about eight-nine years ago for endorsing candidates. I'm not asking that for La Voz, but using student money to influence an election requires a consequence.

I'm willing to let almost anything slide in the ASUC Elections. After all, and I've talked about this with Paul, that one man can singlehandedly overturn the votes of thousands of students puts an enormous burden and responsibility on the person who files. They must not only be right in interpreting the violation, but must also prove that disqualifying the party involved and safeguarding the Consitution is worth disregarding the will of the voters. This means, at a minimum, that the perpetrator willingly broke a law, and that the law broken is so important that not enforcing it will make a mockery of the ASUC. It also means that disqualification will make the ASUC better, rather then blindly disqualifying offenders without any view to what the resultant ASUC will resemble. Will disqualifying all the major parties, even if they were all law-breakers, really lead to a better and cleaner ASUC? Also, there must be no hint of pure political manuevering attaching to the person that files. Flyering over student groups does not reach that level. One of the very few things that I believe does is knowingly using ASUC resources for partisan ends.

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