As ambiguity regarding the Student Government presidential election process lingers, the SG Supreme Court will attempt to end the confusion in a trial on April 5.
Though the trial is between the Jimmy Richards/Jordan Iuliucci ticket and the Election Rules Commission, Mark Lombardi-Nelson and Christa Hegedus submitted an amicus curiae — the name for a brief filed with the court by someone who is not a party in the case— for the court’s consideration.
The brief asks the court to dismiss the case based on 12 pages of “evidence.” It references statutes in the SG constitution that say candidates can only appeal points that were assessed to them, not to other parties. This would mean that Richards, who requested the trial, cannot appeal the points assessed to Lombardi-Nelson.
The brief also claims a lack of due process in the election that resulted from the ERC not following its rules of procedure.
The Lombardi-Nelson/Hegedus ticket was assessed points by the ERC for seven violations. The brief attempts to rebut each allegation.
On the issue of “borderline bribery,” the brief states that Lombardi-Nelson received permission from the ERC to attach coupons for the Tavern to his campaign flyers. Initially, the commission approved the coupons as long as they were counted in the campaign team’s expense report. The brief says Vincent de Cosmo, head of the ERC, did not tell Lombardi-Nelson and Hegedus the coupons were a violation until after they’d been distributed.
Points were also assessed to the Lombardi-Nelson/Hegedus ticket for failing to include the election title and year on campaign material. The brief says the ERC did not declare this rule until March 1, after campaigning began and materials were purchased. Lombardi-Nelson and Hegedus claim this allegation falls under the law of ex post facto, which states, “an individual cannot be held accountable for rules or laws that are made or approved after an action has already taken place.”
The brief also addresses the points assessed for plagiarism. It states that since plagiarism is a federal offense, jurisdiction should be left to federal courts, not SG. In response to the Lombardi-Nelson/Hegedus amicus brief, Richards and Iuliucci submitted for a motion in limine — a request that certain evidence not be used in a trial — claiming the amicus brief “defies logic.”
The motion argues that there is more than one way to appeal to the SG Supreme Court, in opposition to what amicus brief suggests.
Richards references a statute in the SG constitution that says any candidate who feels there was a problem with how the election was handled can request a trial.
The motion calls Lombardi-Nelson’s defense against the plagiarism allegation “absurd,” accusing it of being a “blatant attempt to draw attention from the issue at hand.”
The motion goes on to say that the amicus is “a clear and obvious attempt to confuse the court and issues at hand with hearsay, misleading and irreverent information, confusion of the issues, fallacies, paradoxes, illogical arguments and manipulative obfuscation.”
SG Supreme Court Justice Sean Ericson said the court can only review motions for dismissal of a case that come from the parties involved. Since the Lombardi-Nelson/Hegedus campaign is not a party in the trial, the amicus brief can only be considered during the trial’s deliberation. It cannot serve as a means to dismiss the trial.
In their brief, Lombardi-Nelson and Hegedus say they just want the election decided “regardless of which candidate is selected … because if SG can’t resolve this in time, we forfeit an opportunity students spent years creating.”
This year is the first time a seat on the USF Board of Trustees has been available to the USFSP student body president. The seat on the board of trustees would make USFSP the first regional campus in Florida’s University System to “achieve this level of leadership.”
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