The ASUO Constitution Court will begin a two-week recess Wednesday for law school finals and opinions regarding the remaining cases on the court’s docket are expected to be released before then.
The court has yet to rule on a grievance against ASUO President Emily McLain and a challenge to the results of the presidential primary filed by Rock the Yellow campaign manager Matt Rose.
On Monday, three opinions were posted on the court’s Web site. One upheld an anti-Tasers resolution passed by the Senate, the first time the court has affirmed an act of Senate this academic year.
Another opinion dismissed a challenge to a court decision to prohibit campaign advertising in the Emerald. The third dismissed two grievances against Rock the Yellow filed by Vice President-elect Johnny Delashaw.
The petition to review and overturn the advertising ban was dismissed in four sentences. “The continued controversy surrounding Election Rule 6.12 should find correction through the political process, not this Court,” the opinion states.
All of Delashaw’s grievances, filed before the general election ended, asked that all members of the Rock the Yellow slate be removed from the election ballot. The first grievance said this penalty should have been imposed because a campaign contributor donated seven cents more than the maximum allowed.
Cimmeron Gillespie gave a $500 contribution to Rock the Yellow and also donated seven cents for a campaign T-shirt. In the grievance, Delashaw wrote that “the Kari and Jesse campaign refused to include Cimmeron’s contribution of horrific drum playing.”
Gillespie often drums in the EMU Amphitheatre on Thursday afternoons.
“Mr. Delashaw’s seven cents petition is not well taken,” the court’s opinion states. The court called the amount insignificant and the drum-playing remark an “unprofessional, personal attack.”
The grievance was dismissed with a warning that personal attacks before the court will not be tolerated and in the future “will be met with sanctions,” though the justices did not define what that meant.
Delashaw’s other grievance said Rock the Yellow violated campaign rules by holding a campaign barbecue at the Many Nations Longhouse. Delashaw argued that this was a violation of the ASUO’s equal access rule because Oregon Action Team could not hold an event in the same location.
The court ruled this grievance was “completely without merit” because “election rules do not require identical access.”
The court reserved judgment on a third grievance from Delashaw charging that Rock the Yellow did not properly report the cost of its Web site in campaign expenditures. The court is waiting for the situation to be reviewed by the elections board.
Rose told the Emerald that expenditures related to the Web site were turned in later than the rest of campaign expenditure filings, but before the April 11 deadline at the end of primary week. He said the papers were misplaced in the ASUO office.
The most pressing issue before the court is Rose’s petition, which asks that a run-off election be held with all executive candidates. President-elect Sam Dotters-Katz and Delashaw won the election outright during the primary, but Rose is arguing that $4,000 worth of advertisements purchased by Sara Hamilton should have counted as a campaign contribution.
Hamilton and Dotters-Katz have said that Hamilton was not operating with the knowledge or consent of the Dotters-Katz’ campaign, despite a statement from Senate President Athan Papailiou identifying himself and Hamilton as “campaign co-directors.”
In a statement to the court, Hamilton maintained that she acted on her own to purchase advertisements for both campaigns.
“When Sam Dotters-Katz sent me to completely cancel his advertisement contract on his behalf, instead I canceled it and decided to purchase the advertisements myself with my own funds,” she wrote.
Hamilton told the Emerald she “managed the placements of advertisements on their behalf” at that time. “I never had an official title with the campaign,” she said.
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