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On Nov. 23, an emergency meeting of the University of Maine General Student Senate was called by vice president of Student Government Ross Wolland to discuss a contested election for the Interfraternity Council (IFC) presidency.
Early results for the election said that Colby Malcom won with 218 votes over Ian McKinnon with 211 votes. But, there was a problem with the election. At all UMaine election locations, there are supposed to be representatives of the UMaine Fair Election Practices Commission (FEPC). They check identification of students and make sure that they are indeed members of the fraternity. No FEPC representatives were present at the election boxes.
Several fraternity members rightfully challenged the election on those grounds. The meeting in the Bangor Room of the Memorial Union was called to address this complaint. Nothing was resolved.
According to an article in The Maine Campus, “During the meeting, the senate was presented with a motion to accept the election results and dismiss the complaint, but it failed approval. After more debate, a second motion was presented to scrap the results and initiate a revote, but before senate could vote on that motion seven senators left the meeting, blocking any action.”
These seven senators were Zachary Jackman, Benjamin Goodman, Elias Elder, Nate Wildes, Pardis Delijani, Warren Varney and Mari Emmi, all of whom voted against allowing the election results to stand.
Wolland said the following on the circumstances leading to the walkout: “We were currently debating a motion to do a revote, and at that point in the evening during the debate — we weren’t voting on anything, this is during debate — Sen. Jackman stood up and asked a question. He asked, ‘What is quorum?’ When I told him it was 18, he — immediately afterward — he and six other members of senate stood up and walked out of the meeting, thus leaving us with 17 members.”
Sen. Nicholas DeHaas is upset about the walkout. He said on Nov. 23 that he would bring a resolution to senate demanding the removal of the seven senators. There are some interesting facts about Dehaas. He is the public relations chair for the UMaine’s Beta Theta Pi fraternity, according to their Web site. McKinnon is the president. DeHaas’ name is also on the original complaint about the election, according to The Campus. DeHass is trying to have a new election for his president and voting in senate for having the opportunity to do that. Is this not a conflict of interest?
Would the same complaint have been filed if Malcom lost and McKinnon won? Would DeHaas have argued so passionately? I would wager not.
Walking out of the chamber isn’t a good response. On Valentine’s Day 2008, most Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives walked out on a vote regarding a controversial surveillance bill supported by the Bush administration. Republicans, also angry over charges brought against former White House officials, walked out onto the steps of the Capitol, where House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) had a podium waiting for a press conference.
The Republicans were accused of trying to disrupt the process. “They walk out to preclude us from doing our business,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).
Comments by Wolland, DeHaas and other student government officials echo Hoyer’s statement. Vice President of Student Organizations Samantha Shulman said: “I think it was pretty obvious that they were leaving to make it so that we couldn’t move on or do business.”
Sen. Goodman justified the walkout. “Scrapping the election is a completely different issue and I think it was important that we had all senators present,” he said.
If Goodman and cohorts were so worried about fairness, they should have walked out before the first vote. They stayed to vote on upholding an election that wasn’t conducted ethically, but couldn’t manage to stay when voting against it. If the number of senators were truly the issue for the seven who walked out, upholding the election would not have been any more acceptable than nullifying it. They aren’t two different issues.
The least senators can do is stay seated and vote. After all, what were they elected to do? The student body should take offense to this infighting on our time. This smacks of a popularity contest all around, from DeHaas to the seven senators. Hopefully, UMaine isn’t raising a crop of Boehner-like politicians.
Bangor Daily News