A new organization that has filed to participate in the ASUO election will attempt to expose candidates if they lie, but its ties to OSPIRG caused that organization’s opponents to question the fledgling group’s validity.
Students for Honest Campaigning will seek to emulate the Web site factcheck.org, which aims to test the claims made by politicians in the federal government, University senior David Zahn said.
“I don’t want the candidates to be able to lie and things like that,” Zahn, the group’s leader, said.
The group is comparable to a political action committee, a group organized to advance a candidate or political issue, and will be required to report its expenditures to the ASUO.
Zahn is a former campaign manager for Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group, a statewide nonprofit group that has generated controversy on campus during winter term.
OSPIRG will seek to restore the funding the ASUO once gave it through a ballot measure asking students whether they support financing the organization with student fees.
Presidential candidate Alex McCafferty, who has been instrumental in denying OSPIRG funding for both the current school year and 2008-09, called Students for Honest Campaigning’s ties to OSPIRG “a conflict of interest.”
“I would be slightly concerned simply because OSPIRG has a ballot measure in this election,” he said. “Also, I believe we will be the only campaign that will not support OSPIRG returning to campus in its current form.”
Zahn acknowledged his group’s ties to OSPIRG. Students for Honest Campaigning, he said, will contain himself, OSPIRG Board Chair Charles Denson and others who have been involved in OSPIRG. “I’m just getting into this,” Zahn said. “They needed someone to run the campaign.”
He said, though, that Students for Honest Campaigning would examine statements by those campaigning for OSPIRG’s ballot measure as well.
Denson said he is not a part of the group. “I really don’t know anything really about it,” he said. “David had mentioned it to me, but that’s about it.”
Zahn said the way the group would operate was not entirely certain yet. He said it would likely have a blog, but that much of the way it works would be decided between Friday and the beginning of spring term, when campaigning officially starts.
“It’s just kind of getting things organized and things like that now,” Zahn said.
In addition to Zahn’s campaign, Thursday’s filing deadline for the election threw up other surprises. Four candidates who had already announced their intention to run in campus media did in fact file for office, and one who had not made her intention to run for president known also filed for the election, while another did not.
Senior CJ Ciaramella, a former Emerald reporter, had been adamant about his intention to run, but Thursday passed without his filing.
Meanwhile, junior Cassi Gritzmacher, a former ASUO marketing director, did, at the head of a slate of seven candidates. Her running mate will be political science major Lucas McAdams.
Gritzmacher said her campaign will focus on three major issues: protecting the environment, making the ASUO relevant and ensuring that student government’s funding is transparent.

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