SG Roundup: September 14, 2016

SG party, candidates, begin collecting ideas from students for Fall platform

Impact Party, independent candidates, begin asking students for ways to improve UF

Nick Bussian stopped in between classes to write his thoughts on a board reading “Before I Leave UF…”

On Tuesday, Impact Party took to Turlington Plaza to ask students for ideas to improve UF. The 20-year-old UF economics junior wrote he wants Student Government to be more transparent.

Platform generation will continue today and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m on Turlington Plaza and on the Reitz Union North Lawn, Impact President Janae Moodie wrote in an email.

After using chalk to scribble his thoughts, Bussian said he wants SG members to be open about policies and budgets.

“I think you can never be too transparent about your policies and what’s going on in the system,” he said.

Moodie said Impact representatives will continue talking to as many students as possible.

“Our platform is our contract to the Student Body,” she said.

Jeremy O’Brien Murillo, a UF political science freshman, is one of six independents running in the Fall election.

Murillo, who’s running for the Beaty Towers Senate seat, said the independent candidates aren't forming a party, but they are working together and will have similar platform ideas taken from conversations with students.

The independent candidates will focus on campaign finance reform and implementing remote online voting, he said.

“I can speak for all the independent candidates when I say that Impact perpetuates a corrupt system we fundamentally disagree with,” the 19-year-old said. “We’re standing in solidarity as independents.”

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Senators debate SG committee decisions after the Judiciary committee failed a bill

Student senators debated recent Student Government Judiciary Committee decisions during Tuesday night’s meeting.

After the committee failed to allow a proposed bill limiting political party campaign spending to reach the Senate floor, citing U.S. Supreme Court decisions, Ford Dwyer (Law, Access) argued the committee shouldn’t interpret the U.S. Constitution in issues of Student Government.

The committee deemed the bill unconstitutional because it violated First Amendment rights, but Dwyer said a 2012 UF Supreme Court opinion stated the UF court does not have the authority to interpret the U.S. Constitution, and its jurisdiction only applies to UF’s Student Government. Dwyer said the same argument should apply to the committee.

“I think that’s worth a discussion,” he said. “It seems to me something Student Government shouldn’t be doing.”

He argued that if SG legislation has to abide by the free speech laws in the U.S Constitution, then rules in UF’s 700 election codes determining when and how parties can operate would also be unconstitutional.

During his report, Judiciary Chairman Ben Weiner defended his committee's decision, restating that campaign spending is an extension of free speech, according to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“We don’t interpret the (U.S.) Constitution in the Judiciary Committee; we just follow the law,” he said. “If anyone thinks that we should not follow the U.S. Constitution, I respectfully disagree.”