Members of the Student Judiciary placed moderately severe penalties on some future members of the student government Tuesday night after allegations were brought forth against representatives of the BOOP slate.
Student Judiciary ruled Tuesday that several students who ran as a coalition on the spring 2012 Associated Students of Madison ballot violated a number of election rules, which Chair Kate Fifield said mandated punishments.
Most notably, none of the nine elected BOOP officials will be sworn in at ASM’s first meeting of the next session, according to the SJ decision. They will instead be sworn in at a later date.
“Because not all of the members participated in the [questionable] events, not all should be outright disqualified, so we decided to go with a lesser, but still severe punishment,” Fifield said. “Given that so many elected officials’ candidacies were at stake, the Student Judiciary took this decision very seriously and considered all the possible outcomes and decided that this one maximized the goals of effective deterrent while not inflicting the most severe punishment.”
One of the most contentious arguments SJ had to rule on in this case, Fifield said, was whether or not BOOP members should be held collectively accountable, which SJ ruled they must be.
The governing body’s leadership is typically voted on during the first ASM meetings of each session. The disqualification, Fifield said, will bar BOOP representatives from both voting in the elections and running for the positions.
BOOP member Maxwell Love said the group will appeal SJ’s decision. He questioned the political merits of disqualifying the entire slate from the first meeting.
“Obviously, the biggest point to note is that the second punishment shows that BOOP will be on probation for the entire first meeting, and that’s very clearly a political issue,” Love said.
Still, BOOP has the option to appeal SJ’s decision, which Love said would happen in coming days. Love said he believes based on the legal arguments and precedent BOOP provided, SJ should have reached a different decision.
All BOOP members will also be required to submit a brochure to SJ outlining ways in which candidates can run a clean campaign, Fifield said. Representatives will have three weeks to complete the brochure and gain SJ approval, and no candidate will be allowed to assume their seat on ASM until the brochures have been certified.
The penalties come after an anonymous petitioner brought forward complaints that BOOP candidates had illegally utilized sound amplifying equipment and chalked over other candidates’ writing during the spring campaign process.
