Keeley Sheehan
Managing Editor
A bill that would allow Student Government presidential and vice presidential candidates to use Activities and Services fees to fund their campaign passed due to inaction. Senate President Christian Haas sponsored the bill, which was passed through the senate.
SG President James Scott has not signed or vetoed the bill because of legal uncertainties with campaign finance rules. Because the bill passed through the senate but has sat inactive, the bill automatically passed, Haas said. SG will now decide whether to repeal or amend the bill, and determine its legality.
SG reduced the cap on election campaign spending from $1,500 to $500. The bill Haas sponsored, Bill S11-013, “Resolution to amend Title 7 and Title 8 of the Student Government Statues,” would allow presidential and vice presidential candidates to use $300 of A&S fee money to fund a campaign.
The current draft of the bill requires candidates to collect a petition with 300 USFSP student signatures to allow them to use the funds.
“If someone wants to run, but can’t afford it, this evens the playing field,” Scott said.
SG would allocate money to the Election Rules Commission budget each year for this purpose. The number of students who could use the funding would be limited, according to Haas, allowing, for example, three tickets to seek the funding on a first come, first served basis.
The bill originally required that all signatures be “unique,” so that no student signed more than one petition, but this has been changed because SG saw it as requiring a student to endorse candidates before campaigning has started. The bill is intended to make campaigns “more about ideas,” Haas said.
“Some people [in SG senate] wanted no cap. Some wanted to lower it to $300,” Haas said. The $500 cap on spending “seemed reasonable,” he said.
Students would not need to prove genuine financial need, or give any indication of income level, to be able to make use of the A&S money allocated for campaign finance.
“Public finance [of campaigns] makes sense when everyone takes the money,” Haas said. Students would be paying for a “clean campaign process,” he said.
