Charges Against SA Executives for Perjury and Obstruction of Justice
Today the Judicial Council accepted my charges against the Student Action Executive Slate for perjury and obstruction of justice. They are being charged because of the actions of their designated representative (Suken Vakil) at the hearing concerning their illegal chalking.
There were multiple statements by Vakil that I think reasonable/intelligent/honest people realized were not truthful, but I was not sure if I would be able to prove that. I’ve since become confident that there is photographic evidence and witnesses that will show these charges are accurate. Vakil willfully and purposefully misled the Judicial Council with his testimony in an effort to obstruct the investigation by the Attorney General and perjured himself.
I will be seeking three censures for each of these violations. The Charge Sheet and the initial brief is here. I will post additional arguments from both sides of this once they have been written. Anyone with any suggestions of how to improve my case would be appreciated. The hearing will most likely be some time on Wednesday.
[And for those people who are wondering why I am doing this, I really honestly care about following the rules. Student Action is an extremely large and dominant force on this campus. This year, the only organized opposition for the Executive offices was a token effort by the SQUELCH! Party. Student Action still cheated to try to win the election, and when they got caught they lied about it. At some point it gets too ridiculous and people really ought to stand up and say that we have rules for a reason and people who don’t follow them should be punished. There is the widespread perception that there is almost nothing that major party executive candidates can do to get themselves disqualified, and as that pattern continues it will only lead to worse and worse elections for the ASUC. Either Vakil lied at the hearing or he didn’t. If he didn’t, then I apologize for the mild inconvenience that this suit will cause. If he did lie, then I can’t imagine why anyone would think that I shouldn’t file this suit.]
And for those people who are wondering why I am doing this, I really honestly care about following the rules.
Now that is an interesting statement from someone who has repeatedly bragged about breaking election rules.
Comment by anonymous — June 2, 2006 @ 7:15 am
Andy did it with the intention of getting the correct punishments applied to him so that he can be rightly disqualified. He didn’t try to prevent justice from being applied to his actions.
Suken Vakil, according to Andy, has broken the rules, so Andy is trying to ensure that the correct and appropriate punishments for those incidents are delivered as well.
Comment by Eddy C — June 2, 2006 @ 9:26 am
POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!
Student Action has a monopoly on the ASUC and it should be stopped. This is a democracy not an authoritarian regime that SA has created in the past.
Comment by Anonymous — June 2, 2006 @ 10:37 am
I dont understand how SA has an “authoritarian regime”, we all voted, they won, therefore democratic. If CalServe had the majority, you wouldnt call it authoritarian would you??
Comment by Anonymous — June 2, 2006 @ 11:00 am
I dont understand how SA has an “authoritarian regime”, we all voted, they won, therefore democratic. If CalServe had the majority, you wouldnt call it authoritarian would you??
Comment by Anonymous — June 2, 2006 @ 11:00 am
If they won because of illegal chalking which they then covered up, it’s no longer democratic. National governments have also been brought down over coverup of campaign violations (Watergate).
I definitely wouldn’t go so far as saying Student Action was “authoritarian” though.
Comment by Jim Fung — June 2, 2006 @ 11:31 am
I don’t know too much about ASUC bylaws, etc, but why wasn’t this filed BEFORE the election results came out? Also, aren’t Ben, Igor, and Andy all in the same fraternity? Just my opinion, but this suit seems a lot more personal than actually caring about one or two day chalk. If this suit actually wins and the candidates with the most votes lose, how exactly is that democratic? I’m sorry that Andy’s friends and brothers Ben and Igor lost, but if this suit is successful, then students will be further disillusioned with the ASUC, and think even more that their votes don’t mean shit. And they’ll be right.
Comment by first time poster — June 2, 2006 @ 12:36 pm
The election results for the executive races have been out since the Point of No Return.
Comment by Beetle — June 2, 2006 @ 12:39 pm
Students don’t give two crap logs who wins or loses. If the Council DQ’ed all the execs and the entire senate there’d be a scuttlebutt for about 3 days, mostly fomented by the Daily Cal and the RRCs. After that only ASUC types would care.
Comment by captain duh — June 2, 2006 @ 12:43 pm
Whoever wrote comment 7: as someone who knows Igor, I take issue with your assessment. It may seem convenient to connect the dots, but I guarantee you that Igor has had no communication with Andy since the day votes were counted. He has long since moved on and is taking no part in this new suit.
Comment by anonymous — June 2, 2006 @ 1:45 pm
“If they won because of illegal chalking which they then covered up, it’s no longer democratic. National governments have also been brought down over coverup of campaign violations (Watergate).”
HAHA Jim be serious. Reconsider the first part of your sentence… if they won because of illegal chalking??? HAHAHAHAHAHA
Comment by grand ayatollah anonymous — June 2, 2006 @ 1:57 pm
Well Nixon didn’t win because of the break-in either. He won by a landslide. The crime is the coverup.
But beyond that, 219 people over six polling places over three days could well have been affected by the chalk.
Comment by Jim Fung — June 2, 2006 @ 3:54 pm
Eddy’s answer (Comment #2) is correct. I was trying to get myself disqualified. I committed more than enough violations to do so (including multiple campaign violations that I know the Election Council Chair and Judicial Council Chair knew about) and which no one ever prosecuted me for. Eventually, I had to ask a friend to file charges against me because the Attorney General wasn’t doing so.
I then plead guilty to these charges and asked to be disqualified. The point of that exercise was to show that it is nearly impossible to get oneself disqualified, not matter how hard you try.
For the record, I explicitly campaigned at polling booths during elections, walking right up to voters and polling station staff telling them to vote for me and Bears United. I politely and promptly informed them all who I was. I know that at least one (and I’m reasonably certain more than one) of those workers called Jessica Wren to alert her to my illegal campaigning.
There was plenty of other illegal campaigning that I did this year.
How fucked up is it that someone can try that hard to get disqualified and still fail, and how fucked up is it that such massive violations can be so widely known (among the people in charge of upholding the rules) and still not lead to a disqualification?
Comment by Andy R. — June 2, 2006 @ 4:55 pm
[Our spam blocker killed this comment so I’m reposting it. It was written originally by “Petros”:
Comment by Andy R. — June 2, 2006 @ 5:00 pm
For all you naysayers out there…
First of all, neither Lauren nor Igor nor I nor anyone else asked Andy to do what he is doing. In fact, I advised him against it on several occasions. He is not doing this for anyone, but rather in his own belief about the system we currently have and its glaring problems.
But, I am not going to stand in Andy’s way by any stretch. It is ridiculous that the future executives of the ASUC chose a person to represent them who has lied in front of the Judicial Council to dodge responsibility and is refusing to answer questions from Andy now on previous statements.
Any of you who thought that this had anything to do with chalking from the beginning are delirious. It is the blatant disregard for the rules year after year. It would be more convenient for SA to change the rules and institutionalize their power, but they would rather flaunt the regulations they swear to protect instead. What a joke.
Finally, I’m going to put out there that a party or candidate who cheats the public is not qualified to serve the public. That is a value that has been legislated on the national level, and was attempted to be placed within the ASUC. If Suken is found guilty of lying and cheating, then he and his party must take responsibility for their actions.
Comment by Ben N. — June 2, 2006 @ 8:02 pm
i mean, i hate to be anonther person pointing this out, but do you realize how absurd you guys sound? certain of the execs won by thousands of votes…you don’t win by that kind of margin by some poorly placed lawn signs. I realize there were no significant opponents, but people could have chosen to abstain. it’s lawsuits like this that disenchant people from the asuc and student government, rather than endear it to the “people” who are supposedly being championed and defended here. Is it right to break the by-laws? of course not. But there were law suits already and then the votes were counted…shouldn’t that be the end of it?
Comment by Anonymous — June 3, 2006 @ 4:36 pm
Well, yes. If you believe that even if candidates commit voter fraud and such, we should not look into it.
Comment by Anonymous — June 3, 2006 @ 6:17 pm
Apply your reasoning to the 2000 and 2004 election. The votes were counted and a candidate was chosen. But for some reason, people still bitch about both elections, even the 2004 election when it was apparent that Bush won both popular and electoral vote.
Comment by Anonymous — June 3, 2006 @ 6:19 pm
I am sure my opinion here will automatically be discounted by all of these Anonymouses out there because I ran with SQUELCH!, but why is it so hard to believe that the reason for the suit being filed is because ASUC bylaws were broken? Why have the rules at all if they are going to be flaunted each and every year, as seems to be the case. Someone needs to hold candidates accountable, and if the Attorney General is not doing it, then I am glad there is someone like Andy who will.
I also don’t see at all how this suit could possibly be a cause for disenchanting voters with their student government, as mentioned in post #16. As far as I can tell, disenchantment comes in two steps. First, the realization that you are actually paying this group $55/year, and second, that you have no clue what that money is doing. If anyone actually takes the time to look at the lawsuit, and doesn’t draw their own [wrong] conclusions from learning that Andy knows Ben and Igor, then they would hardly be disenchanted with the ASUC. At least, not over this issue.
Comment by James McBride — June 3, 2006 @ 8:57 pm
James, if I’m not mistaken, Nathan Royer did file charges with the Judicial Council over the chalking incidents in an attempt to disqualify the SA slate. The hearing was held and the Judicial Council issued censures, but not enough to disqualify anyone. What more would you have had Royer do?
Comment by anonymous — June 3, 2006 @ 9:43 pm
Why is Ben and Andy still wasting our money? Because thats all they knmow what to do. Sure people keep saying that Ben was a great senator but think about the times you have heard of him. Every time Ben’s name appears on a paper its because of a lawsuit that he filed. That is all he does with his time and he cheats the system every time.
You cannot respect somoene that does not stand for anything. Last time I checked, standing against SA or any other party is just playing oppositional politics and not really having any morals.
Comment by voter — June 3, 2006 @ 11:10 pm
Anyone who actually knows Ben knows he stands on principles. It can’t even remember the number of times he stood up for them.
I don’t respect people who lie to the Judicial Council and think they are exempt from following the rules.
Comment by Chris Page — June 3, 2006 @ 11:36 pm
Voter: I wasn’t aware that I was costing any money. That doesn’t particularly bother me, because I think that seeing justice achieved is worth the price, but how does my law suit “waste” money? As far as I know all the people who are spending time on this aren’t being paid, so what’s the cost?
Comment by Andy R. — June 4, 2006 @ 12:02 am
:-D
I hate engaging commenters.
voter, no one in the SQUELCH! Party has ever publicly campaigned against any person in SA. We have always been an issues party. Just because our issues oppose some of Student Action’s does not mean we are playing oppositional politics. And, just because we don’t use oversized picket signs or stalk students to class doesn’t mean that we don’t campaign and work hard to do what we do. It means we’re opponents, an alternative. That’s how campaigns work - an exchange of different ideas.
If anything, Student Action got to where it is today by playing opposition politics. For years, they got elected by saying, “We’re not CalSERVE.” Be careful not to call the kettle black.
One last point - this charge that Andy filed is not costing students any money whatsoever. Your claims of cheating the system are, quite frankly, bullshit. I won’t even begin to address your unwarranted anonymous personal attacks.
Comment by Ben N. — June 4, 2006 @ 9:44 am
Well, I don’t think he’ll be back.
What’s your suit about Ben?
Comment by Donald — June 4, 2006 @ 9:52 am
Ben’s suit suggests that because only 30% of voters supported the constitutional amendment, it didn’t pass. As much as I dislike the GA referendum, I think his suit lacks merit, because the Constitution is badly written, and allows such an absurdity. That makes it a legislative screwup, rather than grounds for the judicial council to act.
I can forward you the charge sheet if you e-mail me
Comment by Beetle — June 4, 2006 @ 10:30 am
voter = jason dixon. of course he wants andy and ben to fail.
Comment by Anony — June 4, 2006 @ 11:15 am
Student Action costs a thousand times more money than Andy and Ben will cost threatening a corrupt party with lawsuits. Proof? Take a look at each year’s budget.
Comment by No more... — June 4, 2006 @ 10:22 pm
I love how SA tools always, ALWAYS (and have always) say anyone who opposes them stands for nothing but SA hatred.
Why isn’t andy including the SA senate slate in his charge? Suken lied on behalf of the party, not just execs, and when you’re a signatory you act on behalf of your candidates at all times and in all actions (a la Felarca getting her whole party kicked out). The senate candidates should be up for censures too.
Comment by captain duh — June 5, 2006 @ 8:51 am
andy and ben are the conscience of america.
Comment by mano — June 5, 2006 @ 9:17 am
Hey Andy, didn’t you graduate? Don’t you have a real job now?
Comment by odd beer — June 5, 2006 @ 3:25 pm
Right on one count, and wrong on the other. I’ve graduated but I don’t start work until August. Which means I’m bumming around Berkeley with no school and no work and I guess you know the saying about idle hands…
Comment by Andy R. — June 5, 2006 @ 3:52 pm