Candidates for next year’s Undergraduate Students
Association Council waited patiently for their names to be drawn
out of a bag, keeping their fingers crossed for a prime piece of
Bruin Walk real estate.
During Tuesday’s candidate orientation the
candidates’ placement on the ballot was randomly chosen. The
candidates also selected where their campaign signboards will be
erected on campus.
The candidates also went over some of the finer points of the
election code, called the “Bible of USAC elections” by
Election Board Chair Anat Herzog.
With the unofficial candidate count at 43, this year’s
USAC elections, which will begin sixth week, will have one of the
largest candidate pools in recent history.
The list of candidates will not be official until the Election
Board verifies their eligibility.
Herzog said she is happy to see such a large response from the
undergraduate student body this year.
“I am very excited because the high number of candidates
shows a high level of interest in student government, and that is a
good thing,” Herzog said.
This year there will be three slates: Students First!, Slate
Refund and Bruins United.
There is also a larger-than-usual block of independent
candidates running for most offices.
Last year there were four slates, two of which had only a few
candidates, but this year all three slates have at least 10
candidates running.
A slate is a group of students that run together with common
goals to increase their chances of winning and pool campaign
resources.
The slate Students First! has three members currently on council
under the slate name Student Power!
“We spent a year building student power and now
we’re going to put students first,” said Lucero Chavez,
a third year American literature and culture and Chicana/o studies
student and Students First! presidential candidate.
When Student Power! changed its name from Students First! last
year, Jenny Wood, current USAC president, gave the reverse
explanation, saying, “We’ve been putting students at
the forefront. … We’re (now) proactively bringing students
together to cultivate their own student power.”
Last year Bruins United, a new slate, gained a majority in USAC.
Students First! and its predecessors had maintained or shared
control of the council for the preceding decade.
This year brings the introduction of Slate Refund, bringing a
whole new perspective to campus fees.
Slate Refund has promised to refund all USAC student fees,
amounting to $39.91 per quarter, if elected to office, changing
USAC’s ability to allocate student programming funds.
“Some clubs may get less money, and that is a drawback,
but some of the smaller groups may get more as well,” said
Julien D’Avanzo, a third-year history student and Slate
Refund external vice president candidate.
In another break from recent tradition, all of the slates chose
not to sign a voluntary spending limit contract, which would have
limited campaign financing to a few hundred dollars for each
candidate.
Only a small number of independent candidates signed on to the
voluntary spending cap, meaning there could be large discrepancies
in candidate spending.
This year’s campaign season is more competitive than in
years past, both with nearly double the candidates of last year and
with all positions on USAC contested.