ASUU President Patrick Reimherr vetoed a bill Tuesday that would have allocated almost $570 to the campaign group Students for Garrett Clark.
U alumnus Garrett Clark is the Republican candidate for the House District 25 seat in the Utah State Legislature. Members of the student group backing his campaign asked the Associated Students of the University of Utah General Assembly for funding Sept. 30 in hopes that they could use the money to organize a voter awareness event, which they said would be completely bipartisan and would include Christine Johnson, Clark’s Democratic opponent.
After an extended debate, the Assembly passed the bill under the condition that the student group remove all campaign propaganda from the party.
Critics of the bill quickly pointed out that money was being appropriated to a student group affiliated with a political candidate, which would not only contradict ASUU’s constitution, Redbook, but jeopardize the U’s nonprofit status as well.
“It’s against the law for a nonprofit to donate to a political campaign,” Reimherr said. “The U could lose its non-profit status, which would really hurt this institution.”
With that in mind, Reimherr vetoed the bill before it could go any further.
“I could have let it pass and let it go to the ASUU Supreme Court because it’s unconstitutional,” Reimherr said. “But I decided to circumvent that process and veto it.”
Now that the bill has been vetoed, it will be reintroduced to the Assembly, which can attempt to pass the bill again or simply leave it be.
The Clark campaign will not push the bill any further. Clark’s campaign manager, Andy Murphy, said the campaign urged the student group to not accept the funding shortly after the bill initially passed.
“Patrick (Reimherr) called the weekend after the bill passed after he had spoken with U administrators who advised him the bill was a bad idea,” Murphy said. “At that point we decided not to risk damaging the U.”
Without funding from the bill, the student group will be unable to host the event.
“We’re simply relying on traditional campaigning now,” Murphy said.
He said the Clark campaign is supportive of the veto and understands that it is best for the school.
Although the U is not legally allowed to fund student groups affiliated with candidates, it can fund issue-oriented political groups, such as College Democrats or College Republicans. For this reason, the Assembly has not funded the group Students for Obama.
“The main difference is that those organizations are focused on issues,” Reimherr said. “They promote platforms and ideologies. Their groups will be around after Election Day, whereas Students for Garrett Clark or Students for Barack Obama will not.”