Student Government is designed to be a nonpartisan entity, but that can change when student leaders voice their opinions on the presidential primaries.
Some members of SG have taken stances on candidates, with some even creating and serving on the executive boards of Students for Bernie and Students for Warren.
Others, however, work on political campaigns or have backgrounds in national political organizations such as March for Our Lives, an organization advocating for gun violence prevention with measures such as banning assault weapons.
Student senators formally recognized Juan Guaidó as the interim president of Venezuela following turmoil in the country from claims of a fraudulent election. Students and community members attempted to filibuster the vote a year ago, saying that extending SG’s reach to international politics is dangerous.
The chamber has passed resolutions, or public statements on a topic, on key subjects on issues largely playing out in national politics.
In February 2019, the SG Senate expressed support for faculty at an Ohio university striking over healthcare benefits and the Alachua County Labor Rights Union’s efforts to establish rights for renters.
Senators have also passed resolutions supporting college affordability efforts and March for Our Lives. They urged the university to support legislation providing financial aid to students with undocumented citizenship or temporary approval to live and work in the United States.
And as sexual assaults have risen at UF, conversations on campus mirrored national conversations about reports of sexual assault and safety. Students marched down Fraternity Drive in September, the only area on campus without emergency blue lights. Protesters demanded SG and administration install the safety phone poles, saying the lack of the safety beacons there was unsafe.
Inspire Party officials said they supported the movement after speaking with student organizers. Gator Party said in a statement at the time that it supports students’ right to protest and wants to help make campus feel safe for them.
SG previously funded the installation of a blue light near Graham Hall, but the Senate failed in Spring 2019 to pass legislation expanding blue lights to Fraternity Drive. Weeks after the protest, university administration revealed it would install four blue lights on Fraternity Drive.
An organization run by SG, the Accent Speakers Bureau, also dipped into national politics when it brought Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle, who was named the National Chair of the Trump reelection campaign in January. The bureau paid them $50,000 in student funds to speak on campus in October.
Emails later revealed that a Donald Trump re-election campaign official personally asked UF Student Body President Michael Murphy in September to bring Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle to campus. Murphy later wrote in an email to The Alligator that he wanted to bring both Trump Jr. and Sen. Bernie Sanders to speak in the Fall.
Murphy’s father, Dan Murphy was a lobbyist for UF until about a year ago. Dan Murphy is a BGR Group lobbyist in Washington, D.C. He maxed out donations to President Donald Trump’s campaign at $5,600 before going to an Orlando fundraising event. In September 2016, he was seen talking to Trump Jr. in Washington, according to a report by Politico.
Former SG Sen. Matt Barocas, who is the president of UF College Democrats, helped file for Murphy to be impeached after emails surfaced of his communication with a Trump campaign official about bringing Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle to campus.
Barocas said the impeachment wasn’t partisan, though.
“It seemed like politics was like converging with SG. But the actual impeachment, which I was involved in, I felt like in my determination was objective, not based on like because Donald Trump Jr. is a Republican,” Barocas said. “Just because the money was spent on a campaign. It didn't really matter what that campaign was.”
The payment was addressed to Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle. It is unclear what the money was used for.
Accent also recently announced it would bring former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang to speak on Monday. But due to concerns from COVID-19, the event was postponed. A new date has not been announced.
Yang is an entrepreneur who dropped out of the Democratic race Feb. 11. He started a nonprofit to promote the ideas he pushed for during his campaign, the New York Times reported.
He was invited to speak because it was consistent with Accent’s mission to bring influential speakers to campus, the bureau’s chairperson Henry Fair told The Alligator early March.
Former Sen. William Zelin said he founded Students for Bernie Sanders at UF in June, while he was a senator. He started an organization supporting the politician in high school, so when Sanders was a candidate this election, Zelin said he decided to organize to support him again.
Zelin said he’s never had conversations with constituents about Sanders and doesn’t believe his organization influenced his constituents in the primaries.
Even so, SG representatives should be more transparent about their political affiliations, Zelin said. Although he admits his opinion is unpopular, Zelin said student representatives should be more up-front about their beliefs because students don’t really look to SG for guidance on politics off-campus.
“It's just that I think that when people say that, like Student Government is nonideological, is nonpartisan, or we should strive for it to be that way, it ignores the reality that it just is by default,” he said.
But other representatives think that SG shouldn’t voice their opinions.
A founder of March for Our Lives, Sen. Kevin Trejos (Gator, Business Administration) said his participation in politics doesn’t influence his work in campus government. He tries to keep the two separate, he said.
“Being in public office now, I just don't think that that's something that I want people to judge me based off of,” Trejos said. “People should judge me based off how I served them well and how and what I believe in relating to my office and not based off other political beliefs.”
The only involvement in politics off campus SG should have, Trejos said, is when it directly affects students.
Sen. Zoe Terner (Inspire, Liberal Arts and Sciences) was on the executive board for Students for Warren and is a founding member of Not My Generation, a gun violence prevention organization. She said that being nonpartisan doesn’t mean being nonpolitical.
“There's a difference between partisanship and politics,” Terner said. “And politics for me is about our values and the things that we believe in and regardless of the elected officials who are fighting for them or the parties that they belong to.”
Contact Chasity Maynard at cmaynard@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter @chasitymaynard0.
