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ASM court OKs Union initiative
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Supporters of the Student Union Initiative have endured many ups and downs since its initial proposal, but the University of Wisconsin Student Judiciary announced Monday the initiative stands on solid ground.
Six members of the Associated Students of Madison filed a complaint with SJ against the Student Election Commission Oct. 30, calling for the results of this semester's Student Union Initiative vote, which passed, to be nullified. SJ released a unanimous decision Monday in favor of SEC, thereby allowing the Student Union Initiative to proceed.
Wisconsin Union President and UW senior Shayna Hetzel said she felt relieved when she learned of SJ's ruling but was not surprised.
"The facts and everything were on our side to begin with, so I wasn't necessarily surprised … with the unanimous decision," she said.
The six petitioners said SEC should not have allowed the Student Union Initiative to pass because the group's campaign violated ASM bylaws as well as fair election standards.
The renovations of Memorial Union and the construction of a new Union South would use non-allocable student fees, which are used for large capital projects and are at the discretion of the chancellor and the UW System Board of Regents. Therefore, the initiative is merely advisory in nature because the chancellor and the Board of Regents still have to give final approval on the fees.
But according to the ASM petitioners, student voters may have misunderstood this regulation and voted thinking the results of the election would be immediately binding.
UW sophomore and ASM petitioner David Lapidus said he does not think the distinction was made clear to the student body "at all."
The judiciary did not agree with the petitioners, though.
"The purpose of the initiative was not to directly fund the improvement plan, but to provide the student consent to the proposed plan," Chief Justice Josh Tyack wrote in the unanimous Opinion of the Court. "This purpose is further reinforced by the language of the initiative itself."
The ASM petitioners also accused the Student Union Initiative of misleading students with its campaign, but the Court opinion states the credibility of a group's speech is irrelevant.
According to the opinion, there is no clause in the ASM Constitution or bylaws requiring a running candidate or initiative to be "truthful at all times" and no "election agency" should unreasonably administer the content of candidates' speech.
"That's not a problem of free speech, that's a problem of accountable government and clean government," Lapidus said. "We do, I think, have an obligation to the student body to make sure the referendums we have are not misleading. … In this case, I don't think that was true."
And the Union vote is not entirely out of the woods just yet — an SJ decision that will determine whether the entire ASM election will be thrown out is scheduled to be announced tomorrow.
Regardless, Hetzel said her group is ready to begin planning for Memorial Union renovations and a new Union South.
A design committee — compromised of nine students, three UW faculty members, two UW staff members and two UW alumni — will not be able to meet until the plan is validated by the Board of Regents, which they hope will be as soon as December.
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Good! Now will you whiners shut up already???
Why is Lapidus quoted? He wasn’t even at the hearing. In fact, I don’t know why the paper keeps saing six petitioners because if you look at what was submitted and all the other SJ documents it only lists Patrick Elliott as the complainer.
“Good! Now will you whiners shut up already???”
You mean like you whiners did the first three times, when you lost???
Oh wait — you didn’t shut up? Well, I guess you’ll have to cheat to win two more elections to get us to shut up.
” In fact, I don’t know why the paper keeps saing six petitioners because if you look at what was submitted and all the other SJ documents it only lists Patrick Elliott as the [petitioner].”
courts typically use only the first name in a list of names for the purpose of naming a case
Here’s why we students didn’t want this to pass, we didn’t want to pay anymore money! Tuition and housing and food is enough to pay for, we don’t need to suddenly be forced to pay an exhuberant amount of cash because someone suddenly feels sentimental about the Unions. Yes they’re technically run by the students and we’re the ones that typically use them the most but I don’t see Memorial or South Union collapsing in on themselves. The damage is only superficial, not critical, so while some parts do need to be repaired, they don’t need to be repaired immeadiately. Funnel a little bit of money over a longer period of time to fix that stuff or have a bake sale for crying out loud! Don’t start charging us up the wazoo just because you think that it’s right. The rest of the student body shot you down twice before and you should’ve taken the hint then but no you just had to keep trying until you won. So congratulations! You’re all a bunch of sore losers that just don’t know when to quit! Congratulations! You guys rock so much!