It’s been a busy week in the ASUO. Here’s a look at what you may have missed.
Ballot measures
Though the ballot measure on OSPIRG’s funding has garnered more publicity, there are three other questions on the ballot that could have wider effects on the structure of the ASUO.
Ballot measure one asks students to vote on whether the University should go ahead with plans to privatize the Crisis Center. Two others ask students to approve changes to the ASUO Constitution that would dramatically alter the role of the ASUO vice president.
The vice president’s only statutory duty is to sit on the ASUO Senate in order to represent the executive branch’s voice and cast tie-breaking votes. One constitutional change would delegate some of that power to a new, presidentially appointed freshman representative on
the Senate, who could also cast tie-breaking votes.
The constitutional changes also call for the vice president to allocate the ASUO’s Major and Minor Equipment Fund and work with the Diversity Plan Committee.

Grievances
Presidential candidate Amelie Rousseau and the campaign in support of OSPIRG’s ballot measure were the targets of grievances filed by ex-EMU Board Chairperson Tony Mecum on Tuesday.
Mecum, head of the political action committee Students for Responsible Government, asked the ASUO’s Elections Board to remove Rousseau from the ballot for using the ASUO’s copier to make fliers for her campaign during winter term. The student fee-funded copier is off limits to candidates because of a rule barring using the ASUO’s budget to create campaign materials.
Mecum said a lesser punishment for Rousseau than disqualification would be impossible.
“Not only has Rousseau blatantly violated election rules by abusing her access to ASUO resources through her position on Emma Kallaway’s Executive Staff. Also she has undermined core democratic values through her slimy campaign tactics,” Mecum wrote.
Rousseau subsequently paid back the student government and destroyed the fliers.
Mecum’s grievance against OSPIRG’s campaign asks that supporters of that campaign be removed from campus for 24 hours after pro-OSPIRG messages appeared on classroom chalkboards. He alleged that the messages break an elections rule against disturbing students’ academic experience. It is unlikely the Elections Board could thwart the campaign as Mecum asked because the board does not have the power to bar people from campus.
Gritzmacher may be next
A blog entry posted Wednesday on presidential candidate Cassi Gritzmacher’s campaign site said Gritzmacher and running mate Lucas McAdams violated election rules against campaigning in the EMU.
The post said Gritzmacher and McAdams were talking to students in the building about their campaign when “we noticed a guy snapping a picture of us on his iPhone. We went to talk to him, and he said ‘you can’t campaign in the EMU.’ Our red flags immediately went up.”
Gritzmacher and McAdams then stopped campaigning and took down their banner, the post said.
Ticket policies
Presidential candidate Alex McCafferty frequently cites the policy for student tickets he created while a senator as a reason for students to elect him. The policy gives students in the upcoming year the maximum number of tickets available in the student section for home Pacific-10 Conference football games, but it makes some of those tickets available at a reduced student rate, rather than completely subsidizing all of them through the ASUO.
McCafferty’s rival Jairo Castaneda’s campaign proposed an alternative system: making some subsidized tickets available at 4 a.m. online so that, Castaneda’s spokesperson Curtis Haley argued, students who are passionate but cannot afford the unsubsidized tickets would not be priced out of going to games.
Six unopposed
Six candidates are almost certainly already assured of taking the positions they seek after the election because they are running unopposed. Senate candidates Tom Schally, Marissa Garcia and Zachary Stark-MacMillan, who is an incumbent, can only lose their races if write-in candidates get more votes than them. There are also three candidates for Student Recreation Center Advisory Board running for three positions.
[email protected]