The case of Natalie Blomquist showed that some clauses in Redbook are confusing and contradictory for the Elections Registrar, party candidates and even Supreme Court justices of the Associated Students of the University of Utah.
Colby Harmon, the attorney general for ASUU, has said that he plans to appeal the recent decision made by the ASUU Supreme Court, in the hope of further clarifying the clause. One of several steps to be taken in order to ensure consistency in the U’s Redbook.
Currently, there is one bylaw in Redbook that says senior class presidential candidates must have 90 credit hours when they are elected.
Another, more recent one says that candidates “must be on track to complete at least 90 semester credit hours prior to the potential commencement date of his/her term of office.”
“The two provisions conflict and I can see no way to read them as consistent with one another,” said Justice Brian Watts.
For that reason, Colby Harmon, Attorney General of ASUU, wants to rewrite the bylaw.
Language he is working with now reads that candidates must “be registered to complete at least 90 semester credit hours by the end of the Spring Semester in which he or she runs.”
The revisions would most likely go before the Senate and General Assembly for approval in April.
According to Harmon, the changes would serve ASUU’s purposes by ensuring that senior class presidents would be inaugurated as they have been traditionally, near the end of Spring Semester, and that they would have at least 90 credits at that time.
There is another inconsistency between Redbook and what has happened this year.
One provision states that the inauguration date must be set by the Elections Registrar “prior to the presidential filing deadline, on a date within two weeks prior to or one week following the day of undergraduate commencement.”
This year undergraduate commencement is May 7, but the inauguration date-determined after the presidential filing deadline-was set for April 21, which is more than two weeks before May 7.
Harmon says they will probably have to move the date.
Harmon also says he is working to clarify four other topics. They are:
-Eligibility to run for office, specifically Senior Class President.
-Eligibility to be inaugurated.
-Ambiguities regarding the inauguration date and when it should take place.
-Rules concerning advisory opinions issued by the Elections Registrar.