A fee referendum asking students to support The Daily Californian passed in the ASUC general election, according to ASUC Elections Council chair Pamudh Kariyawasam.
Following the ASUC Judicial Council ruling Tuesday night to overturn ASUC President Vishalli Loomba’s executive order invalidating the initiative, the elections council chair said Tuesday that the V.O.I.C.E. Initiative was approved by voters in the election. The initiative asks for students to pay $2 per semester for five years to support the Daily Cal, the campus independent student newspaper.
Loomba issued an executive order April 11 — the second day of voting — that voided the initiative after she received an email the previous day from campus Dean of Students Jonathan Poullard that said the campus whistleblower program had received letters of grievance claiming the initiative violated UC policy. Tuesday night, the ASUC Judicial Council decided that Loomba had overstepped her authority as president.
The election results for the referendum could not be released during the tabulation ceremony Thursday because an injunction prevented the final tally from being announced.
The percentage by which the referendum passed will be revealed later, according to Kariyawasam.
Tuesday’s decision by the Judicial Council did not rule on the constitutionality of the V.O.I.C.E. Initiative itself, and there is still the possibility that more charges could be filed against the initiative.
Staff writer Chloe Hunt contributed to this report.
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Does this vote take into account abstentions since it is a compulsory student fee? If you count the abstentions with the no votes, then the yes votes only count for 47%.
The order was invalidated DURING THE VOTING. Anyone who reads the news might well have altered their vote or refrained from voting based on that information. The vote count on this referendum (not initiative…) is completely invalid. It is IMPOSSIBLE to say whether it passed.
Way to be completely persuaded by emotional appeals UC Berkeley student body. There was absolutely no clear description of how these funds would be used in the first place in the referendum language, allowing the daily cal to receive about $70,000 a semester from YOUR tuition, to pretty much do with it whatever they please, also creating a clear advantage and overshadowing of the DC’s voice over all other student run publications, as they only typically receive a couple thousand dollars a year in funding. I don’t ONLY blame the ignorant masses however, all ASUC branches need to share the shame for not doing their homework and checking if this absurdly vague initiative was even legal, which is why Vishalli frantically issued the exec order at the last minute. I really hope the student government can save themselves and the student body before this vote is even considered to be valid, but that would mean the campus has not only lost it’s variety of voices but its “democratic” abilities too.
damn you! damn you all to hell!
It will be interesting to see if this will hold up, because students were told to stop voting. The fact that it passed may just indicate that students wanting the fee continued to vote, while those opposed stopped voting, because they thought they had won by default.
As opposed to a charge to students, I would have thought the Daily Cal would take some cost cutting measures like eliminating color pictures.
can we PLEASE start a petition against this? My fees should not be going towards this independent organization. WHO IS WITH ME!
did you vote?
Cal needs the Daily Cal now more then ever~
not really.
why? is the world “now” in a more dire situation “more than ever”?
Honestly if I was the election chair I would have waited until the Judicial Council ruled on the validity of VOICE before releasing the results**. But then again the E-Council already screwed up one referendum by writing the wrong question on the ballot…
** Of course, if Vishalli HAD asked the J-Council to rule on the validity of VOICE, instead of the executive power-trip, they would have put an injunction on the results and the outcome would have been that much more fair.
Here’s hoping the referendum holds up to further scrutiny,
DailyCal has it’s shortcomings like any endeavor,
but on the whole the student body is better off with a student run paper – independent of the administration – that without.
Hope this sticks in your lying craw, Poullard.
Your unceasing, cynical, manipulative dishonesty is quickly earning you a spot representing the worst aspects of humanity.
I swear, if this get’s referred to as a referendum instead of an initiative ONE more time, I’ll lose faith in humanity. Unless I’m wrong. Also, I hope the daily cal realizes it can no longer call itself an “independent” newspaper if it’s funding is mandatorily given by students simply for attending the school.
Initiatives = referendums. Independent = dependent. Other publications = not real publications. All in a Daily Cal’s day work.
day’s” Opps. All in my day’s work.
Um, of course the paper is dependent on the students. Putting aside the matter of money, the student paper is written and edited by, wait for it, students.
OTOH, a matter of great consequence is whether the student paper is beholden to the administration.
You say “Other publications = not real publications”.
I might as well say “2+2=5″. Asserting it doesn’t make it so, derp. Or more to the point, implying the DailyCal staff view other publications as ‘not real’ does not cause any person, at the DailyCal or otherwise, to actually hold that view.
FAIL.
Fee=tax=FAIL
Vote=majority
Welcome to America.
Oh, and by the way, if you didn’t pay the fee, there’d be less Daily Cal printings, and you’d have to BUY some other newspaper if you wanted your news in print. That’s like an extra 75 cents PER DAY. Doh. I hope you do realize that unless tax money, etc. is going to fund things like wars and bailouts (from which you will really see no benefit), most of it comes right back to you (and if we had a progressive tax system, MORE of it would come back to you than you payed into it unless you’re making like a billion dollars or something). Cue: interstate highway system, BART, the bridges (if you don’t take BART because it’s filled with scary black and poor people), Medicare, Social Security (the government fucking pays you back your money!), food safety regulations, the TSA (oh shit do we really want them though, lol), parks, loans (for your “startup”)…I could of course go on.
It’s technically a referendum. Initiative is put on ballot by petition; referendum is put on ballot by Senate. The DailyCal had a petition ready to file, but the university required changes in the question (adding return-to-aid language), so the Senate passed it ultimately. It is a referendum.
Ok. As a member of the Daily Cal staff, I must say that I feel that still using this picture is unprofessional of us. We took at least over 100 that night, and of all the pictures we took we chose the most unflattering picture of Vishalli. I understand we were upset she made the executive decision, but this is just looks like a petty subtle attempt of being spiteful towards Vishalli. We don’t need to do this. It’s immature and doesn’t represent us as the professional news organization we proudly claim to be.