From htowsner@stanford.edu Thu May 1 16:37:46 2003 Date: 21 Apr 2003 12:42:50 -0700 From: Henry Towsner To: wcurry@stanford.edu Cc: yingwong@psych.Stanford.EDU, skvirl@yahoo.com, ktwalker@pangea.Stanford.EDU, bolc@stanford.edu, howiec@stanford.edu, president@assu.Stanford.EDU, jnatoli@stanford.edu Subject: Constitutional Council Cases Bill, I'm submitting the following two cases to the Constitutional Council: Case 1: I claim that the Elections Commission violated the ASSU Constitution by issuing the Campaign Practice Code found at http://assu.stanford.edu/comapp/election/CPC2003NEW.pdf. This document includes the following statements: "Campaigning is permitted ONLY during campaign week. Engaging in activities that constitute campaigning at any time prior to campaign week will be considered a violation of the CPC.", "Campaigning officially begins at 12.01 a.m. on Wednesday, April 2, 2003 and continues until 12:00am on Wednesday April 9th, 2003. THIS IS THE ONLY TIME DURING WHICH CANDIDATES OR SLATES ARE ALLOWED TO CAMPAIGN" It also includes many restrictions on where flyers may be posted and what kinds of e-mails students may send. The Constitutional Council has previously ruled that it would violate the ASSU Constitution to enforce any of these restrictions, however the CPC specifically states that "Violations of the policies and guidelines contained herein will be noted by the Elections Commission, and will be brought to the attention of the relevant university bodies, who will address them at their discretion." According to the Council's previous ruling, the ASSU may not have a part in the enforcement of University policies if those policies violate the Constitution. Therefore, it is unconstitutional for ASSU employees, in their official capacity, to hunt down and report violations of those University policies. (Case signed by Senate Chair Bo Cowgill, Senator Howie Chiou, GSC Member Kris Walker, GSC member Raquel Sanchez, and GSC member Ying Wong) Case 2: I claim that the Viennese Ball illegally charged Stanford undergraduates $75 dollars for (pairs of) tickets, violating Article V, Section 2.A.5 of the ASSU Constitution: "Student organizations that receive a Special Fee may not deprive any member of the Association of any or all of its services unless that member has obtained a refund of that organizations fee. However, during a given year, a student organization may not charge a total amount greater than its per capita Special Fee for services to provided to members of the Association outside of that organization's funding population." By charging undergraduates to attend the ball, and by charging graduate students more than the per capita Special Fee, the Viennese Ball violated this provision. In addition, advertising that those prices would be charged also deprived students of the group's services by dissuading them from attending an event they were legally allowed to attend. (Case signed by ASSU President Monica Henestroza) I will serve as lead petitioner for both cases. Henry