Wednesday, June 3, 2009
A month-and-a-half long election suspension is over, and May Davis, Clay Center senior, will now serve as student body vice president. Her suspension was lifted last Thursday.
United Students won the student body election on April 16, but Davis was suspended on April 14 after Envision vice presidential candidate Alex Porte filed a compliant against her. The Student Senate elections commission hearing board issued the suspension, stating at the time that Davis had committed “egregious” election violations. Chancellor Robert Hemenway decided to keep Davis’ name on the ballot because the hearing board suspension was so close the election. In an April 15 e-mail to the student body, Hemenway said her name would remain because the complaint was filed just before the election, and he wanted an opportunity for Davis to have due process under the University Rules and Regulations.
Davis said she won the appeal because there was a lack of evidence to back up the complaint against her.
“The hearing board tried to judge my intent to things that were not testified to,” Davis said.
Davis said the panel said the hearing board’s decision was “arbitrary and capricious,” and not supported by the evidence.
The panel that overturned Davis’ suspension was made up of three faculty members. They heard the case on May 16, the last day of finals.
“I’m thrilled that the commission saw the decision for what it was,” Mason Heilman, Lawrence senior and student body president, said. “It’s great to have her working with the executive council as a cohesive unit.”
Porte, Great Falls, Va. senior, said he was disappointed by the decision.
“The scales were tipped in their favor from the very beginning,” Porte said. “They only won by 95 votes. It’s unfortunate.”
Davis said while under suspension she had not been able to chair the first student senate meeting or work with faulty in her position as vice president. Heilman said with the suspension lifted, Davis would begin her work this summer.
“I didn’t anticipate this ordeal,” Davis said. “Everything happens for a reason. At worst it was something that made me stronger. But at best, it will be something that cleans up student senate.”
Although no longer a Student Senate member, Porte said he still planned to work with student senators for change in the electoral commission that he said was “broken.”
“You don’t need an elected position to make this happen,” Porte said. “We’re going to make sure that the election commission has a little bit of bite.”
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Comments
Davis' suspension lifted after meeting
So the Chancellor decides who goes on the ballot, and faculty decides who broke the rules? This is a STUDENT senate. We are supposed succeed and fail on our terms. But when the KU administration gets involved, it undermines our sovereignty and turns us into the Chancellor's puppet.
Davis' suspension lifted after meeting
5ive, it would seem to me that there is only one reasonable solution, I must challenge you to fisticuffs!
Davis' suspension lifted after meeting
I think this is absolutely ridiculous. I agree, the chancellor had no right to say she could stay on the ballet. She was caught breaking the rules, and should live with the punishment, not hide behind others. And I also agree that the faculty has no say. Not only is it a student senate, but a university that asks its students to step up. You want us to excel? Well let us breathe, and decide who is on the senate. The faculty is not allowed to vote, that I know of, so why should they have a say?
Davis' suspension lifted after meeting
If you think Student Senate should represent STUDENTS, not faculty join KSSS:
http://tiny.cc/ksss
If just a few people join, we can petition Student Senate to change its cowardly policies.
Davis' suspension lifted after meeting
Right, there's never been oversight of a smaller scale election at the local, national, or international level by an outside organization. And the decisions of entities outside the electoral structure that aren't elected have never determined an election. I'm not sure any review of the suspension by the election commission proper could be considered fair when it's the same commission Davis supposedly tampered with. Further from that, the charges of tampering legitimately do smack of political shenanigans, and Hemenway is legitimately right, for the election to be truly fair Davis deserved the right to appeal the decision, and for her to have that appeal heard by an impartial party. This essentially leaves two "fair" options, allow the election to continue with Davis on the ticket, or delay the election. Hemenway chose the more expedient one. Furthermore one could argue that having a candidate on the ticket who is facing charges of electoral tampering should in the grand scheme of things hurt the ticket and not help it, and as such United Students stood to gain nothing from Davis being on the ticket. All that being said, I do agree with you in that Davis does look a little on the heavy side to be a ballerina
Davis' suspension lifted after meeting
Actually, Hemenway had no options. Student Senate Rules and Regulations 6.5.1 B gave the Elections Commission the right to remove Davis from the ballot. But the elections rules gave Hemenway no right to alter them. In fact, NO rule gives the Chancellor ANY authority over elections. Hemenway changing the ballot was the equivalent of Canada impeaching Obama.
Davis' suspension lifted after meeting
As a former senator let me add: It's only student senate. Breathe. Let the resume builders do their thing. When you get out in the real world, you can enjoy watching them fail at adulthood.
Davis' suspension lifted after meeting
For those of you who believe the faculty are deciding elections they are not. Here is a solution to have a third party moderator for disputes in election battles like these, paid mediators. You could pay a student fee to ensure that these problems are properly cared for without the interference of the big bad faculty/admin. The faculty who take time out of their schedule to give back to the university should be applauded not vilified. As a hearing board, they just interpret rules drafted by students and are not drafting new policy.
Anyways, if this whole election process has shown is that the pool running things just continues to shrink. The incestuous nature of Senate and those who oversee it clearly show that the majority of students are sitting this one out. It seemed like every member of the elections or close to every member had some sort of conflict of interest. I also remember the days of actual crimes like stealing newspapers or failing to be enrolled as a student leading to expulsion from an election. Now it has expanded into cutting remarks to elections commission members. The lack of institutional knowledge of the history of Student Senate seems to make people want to turn this event into Watergate, but at best it is on par with Travelgate.
Overall, students had fair warning when the election started on the issues that existed. Despite these "horrible" acts and the fact students really only had the negative details, they went out and voted for her. I would feel that the weak nature of the violations should result in the will of the electorate being the group that should be valued. However, those of you complaining about Bobby stepping in are basically saying that students cannot adequately discern the information out there and make an informed decision. So it would seem that at the same time you champion student causes that you would rather see a person lose procedurally than by the actual vote total of the students. Students voted with full knowledge of what was going on and the elections commission didn't follow the letter or intent of the rules.
Davis' suspension lifted after meeting
Maybe they should have waited until after the election to try Davis. But even if that's true, it doesn't follow that Hemenway should have intervened. The legal arguement is uncontested: the rules give the Chancellor NO AUTHORITY to edit ballots. When KU administration decides who is on our ballot and whether we can enforce our own rules, can we really call it "student" elections?
We don't need a babysitter.
When I tried complaining to high level SS representative, he told me that SS has an unwritten policy of acquiescing to whatever the Chancellor asks for. That explains why our legislation is so scewed to univesity interest groups and why there has been no conflict between the Chancellor's interests and the Senate's actions.
Join the Facebook group: http://tiny.cc/ksss
Davis' suspension lifted after meeting
I love it when actually relevant things get buried in the summer. In the Kansan.
I'm sure people are going to be really aware of all this in the fall.
Davis' suspension lifted after meeting
Someone at the UDK should look into whether or not Alex Porte (Envision vice-presidential candidate) met with Alex Herman (whose sister he dates, and who is also the chair of the elections commission) just a couple of days before Porte filed the original complaint against May. I've heard that Jason Oruch (who ran with Envision last year) overheard their conversation about how to hurt United Students and testified about it at May's appeal hearing.
If this is true, wow.
Davis' suspension lifted after meeting
Jason Oruch ran with connect, Envision has only been around for one election. I have a lot more i would like to say, but i won't because it's just not worth it. . .
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