Update 4/16/2020: This article has been updated to include that Logan Knight is running under Fund the Clubs for Student Advocate General.
Update 4/7/2020: This article has been updated to include additional information about Fund the Clubs and a quote from the presidential candidate for Anteaters for Anteaters.
Six ASUCI senators who were recalled in the winter quarter are running for different positions for this year’s ASUCI elections, which will be held from April 13 to April 17.
Faith Chua, Ryan Pavey, Joshua Wolfe, Gabriel Zanipatin, Nicholas Ortiz and Logan Taylor Knight are six of the 23 senators who were recalled. Chua, Pavey, Wolfe, Zanipatin and Ortiz are all running for senate positions; Knight is running for Student Advocate General. The petitions to recall the senators exceeded their necessary amounts to allow for a special recall election, as determined by the ASUCI Constitution.
According to the ASUCI Constitution, the Elections Commissioner must validate the signatures and then call for a special recall election to replace the recalled ASUCI officials. The Senate must approve “election procedures and special elections set by the Elections Commission.”
Elections Commissioner Gregory Torres submitted legislation R55-54 — presented by ASUCI Senators Ivan Fonseca and Michelle Mallari — with a timeline for the special election. However, the Senate did not pass the legislation and moved it to the Rules and Oversight Committee for review. The committee has not moved the legislation to the Senate floor to be voted on.
“The Senators do not want to be recalled so they are going to keep postponing the legislation despite my frequent objections. There are no problems with the legislation. [It’s the] Rules and Oversight Committee that has no interest in following the rules,” Senator Fonseca said. He is the only member of the Rules and Oversight Committee who was not recalled.
The timeline that the Elections Commission proposed extended from week 1 to week 3. As of week 2, the Senate has not acted on the legislation. Commissioner Torres sent a campuswide email in which he said that he cannot begin the special recall election until the Senate passes the legislation for the timeline.
There is no clause in the ASUCI Constitution that prevents recalled ASUCI officials from running in the ASUCI Elections.
“Yes, candidates can run to retake a seat they were recalled and replaced for in the next general election, but perhaps more troubling when it comes to the recall election, which decides if they lose their seat, [is that] they could run to take over another seat in the same election (an engineering senator could run for at-large or vice versa, assuming they’re an engineering major),” Commissioner Torres said.
The only way for an ASUCI official to become unable from running for another position is for them to have been removed from office after being impeached. ASUCI President Randy Yan was impeached on Feb. 27. However, he is still eligible to run for re-election because he has not been removed by the ASUCI Judicial Board.
All of the recalled senators are running under the Fund the Clubs slate. According to several of the Fund the Clubs candidates, they support the ASUCI Constitution Referendum, or legislation R55-43.
Some of the candidates who are running with Fund the Clubs — Pavey, Wolfe and Knight — ran for ASUCI last year under the Friends of Peter slate. Wolfe and Knight were members of the Friends of Peter group chat that showed alleged misconduct by ASUCI officials Bryce Lindsey, an engineering senator, and Kimo Gandall, who serves as both Senate Parliamentarian and as a Judicial Board Associate Justice.
Lindsey spoke in support of the new ASUCI Constitution during the ASUCI Senator Forum & Referenda Townhall on Monday, April 6.
“Vote yes on the constitution and vote for candidates who will fund your clubs,” Lindsey said at the end of his statement.
The New University reached out to Lindsey to inquire whether he was officially supporting the Fund the Clubs slate. He did not respond.
The candidate statements for those running under Fund the Clubs and Anteaters for Anteaters are the only ones that specifically say that they support the ASUCI Constitution Referendum and funding clubs.
According to Malik Carmichael who is running for ASUCI President under the Anteaters for Anteaters slate, Fund the Clubs and Anteaters for Anteaters are different slates and are not associated.
“Fund the Clubs is built upon giving money back to student organizations, which is great, but these goals were (1) Written before COVID-19 changes on campus and (2) Were not realistic to run on and personally were not important to me, my slate, and the rest of the students at this point in time,” Carmichael said.
Oriana Gonzalez is the 2019-2020 Editor-In-Chief. She can be reached at eic@newuniversity.org.