Update (1:29 p.m, March 7, 2012): Student Government elections have proceeded as scheduled. No sanctions were issued at this morning’s meeting against any candidate.
According to an anonymous source, Student Government earlier today received a request for a stay of the election, which was scheduled to begin at 9 a.m Wednesday. The request was accompanied by a complaint alleging candidates Daniel Vargas, LLM ’06, S.J.D. Candidate, and Judy Lai, Law ’13, violated Section III.1 of the Student Government Election Bylaws, which provides, “Candidates must act in a responsible and ethical manner.” President of Student Government Skyler Cho, in accordance with Section III.2.2 of the Student Government Election Bylaws, stating “As soon as practicable, the President, Vice President, the complainant, and the alleged violators will be invited to meet with the Dean of Students,” invited Presidential Candidate and current Vice President Rachna Shah, Law ’13, and Vargas and their respective running mates to meet with him and Dean of Students Ellen Cosgrove at 8:30 a.m Wednesday, the morning voting is presently scheduled to take place.
This is a coup !
What about the emergency meeting that Rachna called to open up the minutes to the public in an attempt to take steam out of Matt Gelfand’s comments, and the ensuing email sent publishing the newly opened minutes.
It seems that Student Government is openly backing Rachna’s candidacy, a rather unethical act in and of itself. Perhaps they do not like the idea of having their massive budget impacted, much of which is utilized so that they can buy t-shirts and fund their meetings with plenty of booze.
Good to know that our dollars are well spent.
Rachna’s email to the JD/LLM community accuses Daniel/Judy as calling her “racist.” I found no where “racist” in fact is used in the whole campaign. What is she trying to do?
The student government meeting minutes published recently only confirms how Rachna had opposed publicizing budget/meeting minute, etc.
Joe and “Concerned”,
Thank you for your comments. There was no emergency meeting. I requested an emergency motion to disclose the minutes and attendance records because Student Government was being misrepresented and Skyler has abstained from involvement in the election. As a candidate and non-President, I did not feel I could represent Student Government in a statement at this time. So the only recourse was to request that the facts speak for themselves. I’m sorry you feel that this is Student Government backing my candidacy. I feel, rather, that this is a push for transparency which happens to fall on my side. EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW THAT VARGAS VOTED FOR THIS EMERGENCY MEASURE. There was no disconnect between the candidates about getting this information out there and doing it tomorrow. By the way, t-shirts and “plenty of booze” do not comprise “much of” our budget.
Regarding the minutes, you will see that anytime disclosure came up, I took the conversation towards a domino effect of requests that would follow, to push for FULL DISCLOSURE RATHER THAN IN PIECES. It is a blatant lie that the minutes represent opposition to minutes or budget disclosure! I proposed these measures, and voted for them, so…how can I be against them?
Dear Candidate Racha Shah,
IS it a blatant lie from you that you voted for traparency? It is a fact check matter, and Record can surely do this for us: interview current board members of HLS student government to find out who’s lying. From what’s disclosed, I have an opposite impression: YOU have voted against disclosure (transparency) repeatedly.
J.Q
This is one of the better parts about that tirade: “2) Vargas/Lai
distributed literature claiming that I “voted AGAINST full
transparency. False.”
Really?:
This gem from the meeting minutes sticks out re: Publicizing Student
Government’s Budget
“Rachna:
ii. Wouldn’t be surprised if our money is cut if our budget is
disclosed
iii. Could produce a domino effect
1. They will ask for our minutes and then for open meetings and
other stuff after that”
LOL. Do you think that Harvard Law students are falling for this whitewash? You opposed transparency because it might create a “domino effect” of more requests for transparency, while disclosing your spending would look bad enough to jeopardize your budget. You suddenly changed your mind and decided that you love transparency when you needed open records to help your campaign.
That whole email was odd– an unsolicited 1,600 word letter mostly about personal issues that have nothing to do with me.
I think she was just asking for full disclosure in one go, not just in pieces. Same meeting, 2/29:
Rachna: It’s all or nothing
1. If we disclose this, it has to be fully informed
2. If we disclose this, would it be weird to not disclose our minutes?
3. It’s weird to disclose partial information about operation
We can all read, and it’s blatantly obvious from the meeting minutes that she was opposing disclosure. If everyone supported it 100% like they say they did, why didn’t it pass a long time ago?