Correction appended
AU’s Student Government Judicial Board announced an injunction to stop the swearing-in of five 2017 senators during an Undergraduate Senate meeting on Oct. 27. SG President Pat Kelly’s scheduled “State of SG” address was also postponed as a result.
The board filed the injunction after an inquiry was made the morning of Oct. 27 regarding this year’s Undergraduate Senate elections. The petition was filed by freshman Michael Caballero, who unsuccessfully ran for a Class of 2017 Senate seat.
Cabellero filed the petition because of “systematic voter disenfranchisement,” which he claims is the reason he lost the election, according to the official Judicial Order.
Chairman of the Judicial Board Skyler McKinley received the inquiry early Oct. 27 and immediately called for a full Judicial Board meeting. McKinley said he called the meeting so the board could begin discussing whether or not to take on the inquiry as an official case.
The formal request concerns whether the certification of this year’s Senate elections followed the SG Constitution, according to McKinley. The Undergraduate Senate held two meetings to determine if it would declare the election results valid, according to Senator Kevin Levy. Following the sessions, the Senate voted that the results were valid and would stand.
McKinley said the Judicial Board filed the injunction to give itself time to deliberate the case, and that it has until Oct. 30 to decide if it will take on the inquiry.
The injunction caused arguments among current senators during the meeting, as well as strong opposition statements from senators Kevin Levy, Alex Bradley and Trevor Gurgick. Gurgick said during the meeting that he was frustrated with the injunction because the Senate had done its job in following all proper procedures in deciding to certify the elections.
“I was not happy with the certification process. But at the end of the day, the Senate approved certification. And probably the biggest frustration of the injunction is that there were no procedural issues with this,” Gurgick said. “We went through the documents, and I was one of two people who voted no on a lot of the certifications. But that being said, we went through the proper procedure.”
Levy, Bradley and Gurgick all stated that they would not be sworn into the ninth Senate until all Class of 2017 senators could be certified.
“This whole situation is a disgrace to everyone who wants to do effective advocacy in this body or any body and wants to make a difference,” Bradley said during the meeting.
Levy also attempted to introduce a bill to stop the injunction. However, SG Director of Academic and University Affairs Joe Ste.Marie brought to the Senate’s attention that the bill was not publicly available at the time of the meeting, and therefore should not be discussed.
Following the meeting, Levy further expressed his frustration with keeping students from serving in their elected roles.
“The [Judicial] Board is preventing democracy from taking place. We are now telling five students who were democratically elected that they can’t take their seats,” Levy said. “I don’t think the right decision was made today.”
Correction: A previous version of the article incorrectly referred to Student Government’s judicial branch as the Judiciary Board instead of the corrected Judicial Board. In addition, McKinley’s first name has been corrected.
