Minority Slate to Take Reins of CSUN’s Student Government

The mostly-minority slate of candidates that won the student government elections at Cal State Northridge will be allowed to take office next month, apparently ending weeks of campus controversy.

Associated Students President Brad Marsh on Tuesday exercised his power to veto any further action by the student senate to overturn the March election, an anticlimactic end to a semester of marathon meetings, heated debate and allegations of voter fraud and campaign misconduct by the winning ticket.

“We needed to end this and move on,” Marsh said.

After surviving two previous challenges, the victory of the We the People slate was set aside two weeks ago by a student government subcommittee. After five hours of debate at last week’s student senate meeting, the group delayed until Tuesday a decision on whether to overturn the election.

School attorneys had warned the student government in several letters that reversing the election results could pose legal problems. The president-elect on the We the People slate, Joaquin Macias, and vice president-elect Oscar Garay had threatened to sue the Associated Students and the university if they were not allowed to take office.

Richard Goldstein, attorney for the Associated Students government, wrote that he was “firmly convinced that there is an insufficient basis at law to disqualify Mr. Macias and Mr. Garay from holding office.”

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If the students ignored his advice, he warned, “Mr. Macias and Mr. Garay will prevail in any legal action taken to review this matter. There would be a significant cost to the corporation, both financially and in terms of public relations damage.”

Marsh read a four-page prepared statement at Tuesday’s meeting, explaining why he had barred the senate from deciding the issue.

“The only option I have besides this veto is to spend months in a court case spending student money when we will probably lose on technicalities,” Marsh wrote. “While I believe that Joaquin Macias should be disqualified for the violations which he has been convicted of, I believe that it would be irresponsible of me as the president to send us all to a losing battle in court . . . even if it is right.”

Unlike past meetings, when he was surrounded by supporters, Macias sat by himself on Tuesday. When he realized he’d finally retained his title, he smiled and shook hands with those in the gallery.

But he said his legal fight may not be over.

“The individuals who spearheaded this whole thing definitely need to be held accountable,” Macias said. “I wasted a whole semester playing with these cats.”

Student committees declared that We The People had violated rules against campaigning during classes, rigged the phone-in voting system, benefited from faculty support and spent $300 over the $500 campaign spending limit.

The student government elections committee refused to overturn the results, however, saying the rules provide for penalties only against individual candidates, while the campaign accusations were lodged against the entire We the People slate. Several student senators supported holding a special election, but in the end, the senate took no action.

But two weeks ago, the Constitutional Affairs Board ruled that the We the People slate should be disqualified for the campaign violations, allowing the presidential and vice presidential candidates of the opposing slate, Students First, to take office.

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Members of the student senate are now pushing to eliminate the phone-in voting system, using only paper ballots in future elections, and have called for clarifying the elections code. Macias said both issues will be studied once he takes office for the coming school year, beginning in June.

“Congratulations, Joaquin,” said student senator Juanita Artiles during Tuesday’s meeting. “There is a lot of work to be done. . . .”