Suppose I asked you what have been the three most noteworthy developments at UNC this semester. If you read this newspaper frequently enough, I would venture a guess that one of your responses would be something along the lines of “The SBP campaign process — what a sideshow!”
While there are Board of Elections hearings and fines levied against campaigns in most years, this year’s campaign has been more particularly focused on the Board’s administrative hearings and the rulings of the Student Supreme Court. And despite all the fodder launched on the Twitterverse on the night of Rick Ingram’s disqualification hearings and growing impatience for the injunction of election results arising from Deanna Santoro’s suit against the BOE, the fact remains that — from this law student’s perspective — the arms of our student government have done a fine job enforcing the Student Code in a pressurized situation.
Our student government is essentially a miniaturized model of our own federal government, complete with executive, legislative and judicial branches operating under a constitution. That constitution provides for the Board of Elections to administer Student Congress’s laws governing elections and for the Student Supreme Court to settle questions of law arising under the Student Code.
The Board and the Court are small bodies, composed of 7 members and 5 justices and a chief clerk, respectively. Their responsibilities are serious within the framework of our student government, and their decisions carry great weight in the outcomes of elections.
While it is easy to decry the dearth of procedure apparent in Ingram’s disqualification hearing, Board of Elections chair Andrew Phillips presided in a way that allowed the presentation of all the evidence relevant to the Board’s decision: the primary objective of such a hearing. I give Phillips — whose interests fall well outside the legal and political sphere — credit for acting reasonably in his position, giving all interested parties the opportunity to be heard and coming to an acceptable decision with the rest of the BOE.
Soon after this hearing, of course, Santoro resigned as speaker of Student Congress to file suit against the BOE for its interpretation of the Student Code. The BOE permitted Ian Lee to run for student body president while serving as student body secretary, based on an interpretation of an ambiguous provision of the Code.
The Court also did an excellent job ensuring that both parties had adequate opportunity to set forth their arguments before reaching its decision. After careful review of the briefs, the Court also identified the factors which were paramount in determining the suit’s ability to go forward. It properly dismissed the suit because Santoro failed to file within a 72-hour window to challenge a BOE decision.
It is easier to understand all that has transpired in the last two weeks from within the walls of the law school; that doesn’t change the fact that the issues raised by these hearings and suits are delicate and nuanced.
Still, the bodies that have had to address this season’s campaigns in the light of the Student Code have done admirable work to ensure a fair election.
