The Student Senate passed a bill at Tuesday night’s meeting that would put parameters on when candidates and political parties could campaign for Student Government elections.
The bill passed 39 to 12.
The revisions proposed campaigning to start one week before elections and end when the polls close.
“Campaigning” would be redefined to encompass election-specific material, which solicits support for a candidate or party.
However, the revisions also added “campaign activity” to the codes, which is intentional action or support of a party or candidate that does not solicit votes. Campaign activity would start four weeks before the election and end when the polls close.
The revisions also revised campaign material to include Internet posts.
“You have to make it accountable to a party,” said bill author Judiciary Chairman Cayman Weimer after the meeting.
Before the Senators debated the bill, Weimer read an email from the University of Florida General Counsel that explained that the bill does not seem to violate state or federal law at the current moment.
Sen. Lauren Verno, an author of the bill, said it would bring more bipartisanship by allowing senators to focus on the Senate as a whole instead of campaigning.
“We represent over 50,000 students as a chamber,” she said. “This is helping the bipartisanship of Student Government.”
Senate President Pro Tempore Logan Harrison said his job as pro tempore encourages unbiased decisions. He said this bill would allow him to remain unbiased and impartial instead of campaigning for his particular party.
However, Sen. Max Stein believed the revisions were detrimental to free speech.
“This is very and clearly an attempt to stifle the student voice,” he said.
Sen. Matt Pesek echoed his sentiments. He said whoever has the free time to campaign should have the liberty to do so.
“If we have more than one week [to campaign], we wouldn’t have to have armies of people harassing people at Turlington,” he said.
The bill needs to be approved by the Senate for a final time.
The Senate also approved Robert Andrade, Daniel DiMatteo, Michael Hacker, Brett Halperin and Cole Sullivan as new Supreme Court Justices.
There was much debate around Daniel DiMatteo’s appointment because of his knowledge of a hazing incident that happened with his fraternity, Pi Kappa Phi, four years ago that resulted in the fraternity being kicked off campus.
DiMatteo phoned in during the Senate meeting and said he knew hazing had occurred and reported it to the administration of his fraternity. He said he followed appropriate channels.
Sen. Cory Yeffet thought questioning about a hazing incident was not relevant to his Supreme Court appointment. He also said that hazing has changed a lot in four years and DiMatteo did try to remedy the situation.
However, Pesek said DiMatteo will represent the highest form of integrity as a justice and he did not have the highest form of integrity.
Contact Samantha Shavell at sshavell@alligator.org.
