Aram Ghoogasian: USAC must close loopholes allowing illegal campaign fundraising

After a week of consistently being the top story, LET’S ACT! went out with a fizzle.

Of the nine contested positions, it managed to win only two.

The results are indicative of students’ attitude toward the Undergraduate Students Association Council and their angry reaction to LET’S ACT!’s alleged Machiavellian campaign tactics. The scandal that broke last week clearly hurt the slate, causing members to lose races they seemed almost guaranteed to win.

Documents leaked on Facebook last week allege that the slate used student fees and profits made from selling drugs to fund previous campaigns.

Even if the Election Board’s subsequent investigation of LET’S ACT!’s fundraising methods doesn’t yield enough evidence to take action against the slate, the accusations and the consequences in this election have shown that the processes currently in place to monitor slate campaign activity are out of date and ineffective.

Because of that, USAC is quickly losing what little relevance it has had for the student body.

To help remedy this, the newly elected council, dominated by Bruins United, needs to address the loopholes that can allow illegal campaign fundraising to go unchecked. It needs to draft language for the USAC bylaws that allows the Finance Committee to audit USAC offices and slates throughout the year, ensuring that no student fees are being funneled into political campaigns. Student participation in elections may depend on it.

Future USAC candidates need to come to the realization that the student body is disillusioned with their nonsense. Not many people take it seriously and over-the-top elections such as this one, which included the alleged selling of drugs for campaign money and a leaked video of the next Financial Supports Commissioner Ruhi Patil parodying her opponent’s dancing, turn everyone off. The alleged allocation of student fees toward campaigning budgets, the most serious allegation, crossed the line.

Close monitoring and auditing of individual offices and slates by the Finance Committee to make sure money isn’t being laundered for use in campaigns is becoming a sad necessity.

The flurry of allegations gives us enough evidence to believe that something illegal was going on. Some of the leaked documents were confirmed as authentic by External Vice President Conrad Contreras. Moreover, the Facebook event showing Jaimeson Cortez advertising the sale of marijuana at a party heavily attended by LET’S ACT! members was enough proof for us to assume those allegations were real – it’s not a stretch to assume that the student fee allegations were true too.

This was enough to legitimize students’ suspicions. Even if it isn’t enough for a sanction or disqualifications, the bylaws should include language to prevent any instance of these violations.

USAC slates won’t put it on themselves to run clean campaigns that encourage students to participate. Legislation needs to be passed so candidates cannot go under the radar with illicit activities.

Legislation like the Election Code changes has improved things on paper with campaign expenditure limits. The Election Board should be applauded for that. But some things are out of the Election Board’s control.

Whether or not the documents are authentic, they have still created an even more hostile election climate than we are accustomed to seeing. While this year saw more restrictions placed upon campaign funding, a welcome change, we evidently still have a ways to go in reforming both the bylaws and Election Code to ensure a smooth election week.

USAC elections can progressively become less ugly and more productive if future student leaders are able to learn from instances such as this and build a more solid student election structure.