CalSERVE Elections Coordinator Anais LaVoie filed five charges against Mecklai in April for distribution of campaign literature in residence halls, solicitation in the dining commons and explicit disobedience of residence hall staff directives.

LaVoie accused Mecklai of cheating, citing that the “margin of victory in her election can plausibly be enumerated as the number of votes gained through illegal campaigning.”

Four of the five petitions against Mecklai were dismissed by the council due to insufficient evidence and witness testimonies. The council then reviewed Mecklai in a hearing on May 2 for one charge of solicitation in the dining commons of a resident hall and evaluated an oral and written testimony from resident assistant Jasmine Verret.

According to the opinion, the written testimony from Verret cited Mecklai “not campaigning but definitely soliciting” multiple tables of students in Cafe 3.

However, while the written testimony suggested multiple incidents of solicitation, Verret’s oral testimony only referenced one specific incident, and the council therefore ruled that the witness’s collective testimony did not meet “the standard of clear and convincing evidence.”

The council chose to evaluate case evidence individually rather than holistically because four of the charges were dismissed before the hearing. Although the evidence presented appeared to “establish a pattern of intent,” the council ultimately ruled that the evidence against Mecklai was insufficient in charging her and found her not guilty on all five charges.

If the council had taken a holistic approach, the opinion states that there would have been “sufficient evidence and testimony to charge (Mecklai) with at least, but not limited to one censure.”

“While I’m disappointed that we lost the case by such a close ruling of 5 to 3, I’m confident that the act of pursuing elections violations this year will clean up elections in the future,” LaVoie said in an email.

Mecklai said she felt relieved by the results of the trial.

“I’m glad it’s over, and I’m trying to keep my head up,” Mecklai said. “I’ve always said that I’m not a partisan person, and I want to maintain that and not let this affect that going forward.”

LaVoie v Mecklai Official Judicial Council Direct Judgment (PDF)

LaVoie v Mecklai Official Judicial Council Direct Judgment (Text)

Contact Jacob Brown at jbrown@dailycal.org. Contact Jennie Yoon at jyoon@dailycal.org

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The council heard the case, Ickowitz-Freeman v. ASUC Senate & SB 160, at Anna Head Alumnae Hall Wednesday morning. Petitioners Noah Ickowitz, SQUELCH! party chair and a former Daily Cal columnist, and Joey Freeman, former external affairs vice president, allege that the bill’s passage was unconstitutional because it legislated investments, did not pass through the ASUC’s investment committee and did not obtain the two-thirds majority required to approve investment legislation.

CalSERVE Senator Nolan Pack argued for the defense, saying that SB 160 makes no changes to the budget and therefore does not fall under the investment committee’s purview. He also said that SB 160 leaves the ASUC’s revenue sources  unaltered. If this is true, the bill’s passage would be constitutional.

On Friday, the Judicial Council approved a settlement agreement to the case that would remove language from the bill, making the passage constitutional. On Saturday, however, the Judicial Council backtracked on that decision, deciding instead that the settlement was invalid.

ASUC Attorney General Hinh Tran agrees with the petitioners that the bill’s passage was unconstitutional and decided not to represent the ASUC Senate in this particular case despite the attorney general’s traditional role of doing so.

“The settlement would have produced a constitutional SB 160,” Tran said. “I determined personally that there are parts of SB 160, as is, that are unconstitutional because the ASUC intended that anything finance-related would require a two-thirds vote in order for the ASUC to divest.”

SB 160 was originally passed on April 18 by a vote of 11 in favor and nine against after 10 hours of debate that continued through the night and into the following day.

Pack — in place of Tran — argued for the constitutionality of the bill’s passage.

However, despite the procedural nature of the case, both sides felt their personal beliefs on divestment were being brought into the debate, raising questions about whether individual values will influence the justices.

“A significant part of the defense’s arguments were personal attacks on the plaintiffs rather than arguments against legal claims that the plaintiffs were making,” Ickowitz said. “Personally, I felt that they harped on one of the violations I was asserting but briefly addressed the others.”

Pack said, however, that this is not about Israel or Palestine but about upholding the integrity of decisions made by the ASUC.

“I hope that the Judicial Council upholds the legislative decision of the senate to support SB 160 rather than affirming arguments that aim to use judicial council to achieve a legislative goal,” he said.

The Judicial Council declined to comment on this story.

Click here for a video of Ickowitz’s statement.

Contact Matt Trejo at mtrejo@dailycal.org.

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SB 160 divests ASUC funds from companies affiliated with the Israeli military. The Judicial Council originally issued the gag order around 8 p.m. Saturday evening, demanding silence on the case from all parties involved. The gag order came after the ASUC rescinded its previous decision to approve a settlement of charges against SB 160 that removed any clauses that required the ASUC to divest its funds.

“While the judicial procedures allow for a gag order to be placed any time, I believe that their reason was not sufficient to overstep the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” said Noah Ickowitz, a petitioner in the case, SQUELCH! party chair and a former Daily Cal columnist.

In an email obtained by The Daily Californian, Associate Justice Scott Lara thanked all parties involved for their patience during the gag order and stated that currently, “the confusion about trial procedure and the judicial process between the parties has largely been cleared up.”

Members of the ASUC Judicial Council could not be reached for comment as of 4:30 p.m.

On Friday, the Judicial Council voted in favor of a settlement between the petitioners and the bill’s author, Student Action Senator George Kadifa. The settlement would have removed clauses that petitioners had said were unconstitutional. Petitioners alleged that the bill had not been approved by the appropriate ASUC committees and was not passed by the necessary two-thirds vote. Two ASUC officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the gag order, were sharply critical — even angered — at what they called the council’s freehanded use of the gag orders, which the officials said was an overreach of the council’s authority.

The original charges will now go to trial, and the Judicial Council will rule on their validity. The trial for Ickowitz-Freeman v. ASUC Senate & SB 160 is scheduled for Wednesday at 11 a.m. at a location to be determined.

UPDATE at 6:12 pm: The trial will be held at Anna Head Hall and is open to members of the public.

Staff writer Jeremy Gordon contributed to this report. 

Contact Shirin Ghaffary at newsdesk@dailycal.org

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The gag and restraining orders were lifted on Saturday. Previously, Mecklai, along with CalSERVE Elections Coordinator Anais LaVoie — who filed the charges — and all other witnesses named in the petition, could not publicly comment on the investigation or its proceedings. On Saturday, the Judicial Council voted to remove the restrictions.

According to the Judicial Council’s rules of procedure, “a Gag Order may be issued by any Justice at any time a Justice believes the situation merits such an order. Once a Gag Order has been issued, the parties involved with the matter may not discuss the matter publicly, or with individuals not directly involved in the matter.”

In April, LaVoie filed charges against Mecklai alleging she violated ASUC Constitution bylaws during the recent ASUC elections. The charges include explicit disobedience of residence hall staff directives, distribution of campaign literature in the residence halls, solicitation in the dining commons and solicitation in the residence halls, according to the hearing brief.

LaVoie asked that the Judicial Council assign Mecklai 15 campaign censures, which would disqualify her from holding office as ASUC external affairs vice president.

Contact Jacob Brown at jbrown@dailycal.org

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The senate originally voted to reduce the stipends of ASUC Attorney General Deepti Rajendran and 2012 Elections Council chair Pamudh Kariyawasam from $1,500 to $900 due to issues that arose during the 2012 ASUC general election regarding fulfillment of ASUC by-laws. Rajendran and Kariyawasam first filed cases to receive their full stipend amounts on May 14 and May 11, respectively, following the original senate decision.

In both cases, the plaintiffs selected former Executive Vice President Chris Alabastro as the official spokesperson and defendant in the cases because Alabastro had chaired and run the last senate meeting during which stipends for all ASUC officers were reviewed.

Both former ASUC officials also charged the senate with violating several sections of the ASUC Constitution and its by-laws, according to their charge sheet forms.

According to Rajendran’s charge sheet, the senate had failed to elaborate on her expected duties, but she maintained she had fulfilled all of her obligations.

“With no training or guidance, I was left to figure out my obligations on my own,” Rajendran said in the charge sheet form she submitted to the Judicial Council. “I read the by-laws and adhered to all requirements under duties of the Attorney General.”

Kariyawasam made a similar statement in his charge sheet form and said that he was solely informed that he would have to abide by Title IV of the ASUC by-laws  — which outline election procedures and duties — during his appointment hearing before the senate at the beginning of the school year.

“I made it abundantly clear that my principal standard of success would be maximizing voter turn-out, a statement that received strong approval from the senators at the time,” Kariyawasam said in his charge sheet form. “At the end of the Election season, we drew record voter turn-out, ran a clean election and met our by-laws mandates.”

However, according to incoming ASUC President Connor Landgraf, who was a senator at the time of the stipend discussion, the majority of the senate believed that Kariyawasam had failed to fulfill his duties, leading the entire senate to vote to reduce Kariyawasam’s stipends.

“We spent several hours talking about (Kariyawasam’s) obligations with him,” Landgraf said. “Many senators felt like he hadn’t fulfilled his duties laid out by the by-laws.”

Landgraf also said the senate had clarified Rajendran’s obligations as well, but procedural errors for several ballot referendums indicated that Rajendran had failed to ensure items on the ballot were correct prior to the start of the election, which is one of the main responsibilities of the attorney general.

“There were procedural errors on several referendums. The Daily Cal referendum was almost disqualified because of problems with how it was implemented,” Landgraf said. “This demonstrated that (Rajendran) hadn’t fulfilled her responsibilities.”

The V.O.I.C.E. Initiative was a student fee referendum on the 2012 ASUC election ballot that asked students to pay $2 a semester to support The Daily Californian.

At the final senate meeting in May, former Academic Affairs Vice President Julia Juong and Election Council Publicity Coordinator Marrina Wang had their stipends reduced while Election Council Assistant Chair Lanssie Ma’s full stipend was given to Finance Intern Kevin Idnani instead.

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The charges — the first filed by ASUC President Vishalli Loomba and ASUC Attorney General Deepti Rajendran, and another filed by former CalTV Co-Executive Director Myles Moscato  — asked the council to disqualify the referendum because of alleged violations of ASUC policy.

In the summary judgement, the council “rules that there is not sufficient statutory basis to order the disqualification of the V.O.I.C.E Referendum.”

The initiative asked students to support The Daily Californian through a $2 per semester student fee and was announced to have passed in the ASUC general election on April 24, with 5,977 students voting in favor and 4,054 students voting to not support the fee.

The referendum was invalidated on the 2012 ASUC general election ballot when Loomba issued an executive order on the second day of the election after concerns over the legality of the fee arose from the fact that no memorandum of understanding had been drafted prior to the election. The MOU would allow the Daily Cal, an independent organization, to receive funds from a student fee referendum.

Loomba said that allowing an independent organization to put a referendum on the ballot without negotiating a MOU before the election would set a bad precedent on a UC systemwide level by allowing campus funds to be transferred to noncampus entities.

“This is about the violation of policy and the lack of transparency and disclosure of information to the student body at large,” Loomba said at a senate meeting the night after issuing the executive order.

The executive order was later overturned on April 24 by the Judicial Council. Afterward, Loomba and Rajendran filed new charges against the referendum alleging the initiative violated policies of the ASUC, which were accepted by the council.

Moscato’s charges alleged that campaign violations committed by the V.O.I.C.E. campaign had gone unpunished, as well as similar violations of ASUC and university policies regarding campus-based student fees as those in Loomba’s charge sheet.

The council stated in their ruling that V.O.I.C.E. campaign manager Lynn Yu had, through email correspondances with liaisons with the UC Office of the President, found “an appropriate method had been discovered to resolve policy ambiguities.”

“There are many other things wrong with V.O.I.C.E. aside from its legality,” Moscato said in a statement issued after the council’s final ruling was announced. “The way this debate has been handled by our elected representatives and members of the Daily Californian has made me ashamed to be a part of this university.”

ASUC Solicitor General Erin Delaney said that the council’s ruling is “pretty incontestable,” at this point in the semester. Delaney added that the council’s suggestion to rewrite the ASUC bylaws concerning the referendum process was another positive outcome of their ruling.

“Anything that gets the bylaws rewritten is something we should all be happy about,” Delaney said. “The ASUC bylaws are notorious for being impossible to understand.”

Yu said that the council’s decision was a “perfect, fitting ending to what’s been one hell of a ride.” Yu said that the next steps will be getting the fee officially approved by the Chancellor and UCOP, once the Judicial Council certifies the votes, and then working with campus Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief Financial Officer Erin Gore to get the fee placed on students’ CARS bills for this fall.

“We hope that moving forward, everything will be as smooth as everyone expected it to be in the first place,” Yu said.

Read the full text of the summary judgement below:

Adelyn Baxter is the news editor.

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The ASUC Judicial Council rejected charges that would have prohibited Delaney from representing campaign manager for the referendum Lynn Yu in any case regarding the legality of the V.O.I.C.E. initiative. The charges — filed by CalTV co-executive director Myles Moscato — were dismissed on the grounds that the decision was already considered ruled upon.

Delaney represented Yu at an April 18 hearing where Yu contested an executive order issued by ASUC President Vishalli Loomba that invalidated the student fee initiative on the 2012 ASUC general election ballot.

According to ASUC bylaws, the solicitor general is the primary spokesperson of the ASUC if it is a plaintiff or defendant in any case.

But the judicial council stated in their ruling that when the concerns were brought up at the previous hearing, spokesperson-client right and privilege disabled Delaney from her requirement to prosecute the V.O.I.C.E. initiative.

“The issue has already been reviewed and ruled on,” the ruling states.

The V.O.I.C.E. initiative asked students to support The Daily Californian through a $2 per semester student fee. After the judicial council overturned the executive order, the student fee was announced to have passed in the ASUC general election.

The judicial council has not yet announced whether another hearing will be held regarding the legality of the initiative.

Chloe Hunt is the lead student government reporter.

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Graduate Assembly President Bahar Navab and ASUC President Vishalli Loomba, as well as SQUELCH! Senator Noah Ickowitz, filed charges against Elections Council chair Pamudh Kariyawasam, requesting the disqualification of the referendum from the ballot. Both charge sheets claimed that there were errors on the ballot misinforming students.

Kariyawasam said that the grounds for disqualification were reasonable and legitimate.

The Class Pass referendum asked students to support extending the campus bus pass agreement with AC Transit for an additional seven years and increase its cost to $86 beginning in fall 2013. The current seven-year bus pass agreement — passed in 2006 — is still in effect.

Navab and Loomba were proponents of placing the referendum on the ballot.  Although the contract does not expire until next year, placing it on the ballot this year would allow students to vote on the contract without necessarily voting to keep or lose the bus pass entirely, they said.

The Judicial Council found four total violations — including a mistake within the printed voters’ guide distributed to students that advertised the pass as only a three-year agreement — and, in accordance with ASUC bylaws, disqualified the referendum on the  “grounds that the mismanagement or the unpunished violation substantially affected the outcome of the election.”

Read the full text of the charge sheet below:

Chloe Hunt is the lead student government reporter.

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Moscato asks the ASUC Judicial Council in the charge sheet to prohibit Solicitor General Erin Delaney — who represented the initiative’s campaign manager Lynn Yu at the previous hearing — from representing Yu in any case regarding the legality of the V.O.I.C.E. initiative.

“Representation would act as a blatant conflict of interest and disregard for ASUC by-laws,” Moscato said in the charge sheet.

Moscato also said in the charge sheet  that he would ask the council to require Delaney to pursue any actions for charges filed against campaign violations for the initiative. Delaney is the primary spokesperson of the ASUC if it is a plaintiff or defendant in any case, according to ASUC bylaws.

Moscato filed his claims as an individual and not on behalf of CalTV. ASUC-sponsored student groups cannot campaign for or against election candidates or initiatives.

At the April 18 V.O.I.C.E. hearing – where Yu filed charges against the legality of an executive order that invalidated the initiative — the council decided that Delaney could represent Yu.

But in their final decision announced April 24 to overturn the executive order, the council indicated their “extreme displeasure” with Delaney representing the plaintiff.

“Since I have been operating as the V.O.I.C.E.’s representation since the original by-law violation charge sheets were filed nearly a month … and officially recognized as their counsel since the Executive Order trial, it would be unethical for me to levy charges against them,” Delaney said in an email.

The initiative asked students to support The Daily Californian through a $2 per semester student fee. After the hearing, it was announced to have passed in the ASUC general election.

The council has not yet met to discuss the charge sheet, according to Erica Furer, the council chair.

Chloe Hunt is the lead student government reporter.

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The settlement would allow V.O.I.C.E. to move forward toward implementation, according to an email sent by campaign manager of the referendum Lynn Yu.  A hearing in front of the ASUC Judicial Council was planned after ASUC Attorney General Deepti Rajendran and ASUC President Vishalli Loomba filed a charge against the legality of the initiative.

The charge brought by Rajendran and Loomba alleges that the $2 student fee to support the Daily Cal violates the policies of the ASUC.  Loomba’s executive order to invalidate the initiative — which was upheld by the ASUC Senate — was overturned in an unanimous vote by the judicial council after an April 18 hearing.

Elections Council Chair Pamudh Kariyawasam then announced that the initiative passed in the ASUC general election April 24.

The judicial council may decide to approve or reject the settlement as proposed.

Yu declined to comment on the specifics of the settlement until it is finalized and turned in to the judicial council.

Chloe Hunt is the lead student government reporter.

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