Injuction halts fee increase vote

The ruling came after a student filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to review the way the referendum on this initiative was handled.

"The main argument that was put in the petition was that the initiative was not done the right way. It was not put together by students, it was not voted on by the Senate and the president didn't sign it," said Issac Pérez Bolado, senior double major in political science and economics. "But the point that won the injunction was that the referendum was a violation because there needed to be a student election commission to supervise the way the campaigning was done and the way the votes were handled."

Voting for the initiative was to take place online from March 10 at 8 a.m. until March 11 at 5 p.m. The Supreme Court ruling stated, "the Senate acted within the law when they issued the resolution allowing voting to take place on the Campus Life and Athletics Initiative referendum and acted within the scope of the law when they called for a special vote to take place regarding the matter." The main reason for the injunction was because "holding the special vote without an election commission would be a direct violation of our election code."

Hector Hernandez, Supreme Court chief justice and education graduate student, said the court convened and decided that there was merit to a portion of the petition.
"The part of the petition that had merit was that, unfortunately, the vote couldn't take part without the university having an election commission formed from students," Hernandez said.

Before voting may be conducted on the initiative, the SGA must form an election commission to oversee the proceedings. Once the commission is formed, they will determine when the date for the voting will take place.

"They (Supreme Court) felt there should be a student election commission, since it's a student referendum to make sure that the voting is conducted well and if there are any questions or issues that there is a group to bring those issues to," said Richard Padilla, vice president for student affairs.

Many students felt that the voting for the initiative was rushed and that the SGA did not allow them enough time to get all the facts about it.

"I am happy with the injunction because we didn't have enough time to inform ourselves on the initiative. They just basically told us what they were going to do without even having a say from the students," Perez said. "I felt the way they did it was very sneaky and that they just tried to slip it by the students."

According to Padilla, most of the groundwork for the initiative was done behind the scenes and the reason the voting was to take place before spring break was because of the time restraint to get the initiative, if passed, to the state Legislature. The next legislative session will begin in January 2011.

"It would have been nice to have more time, but one of the real issues was getting it in before spring break and the student (SGA) elections. The vote does need to happen soon so the results will be available to take to the state Legislature," Padilla said. "I don't think it is a bad thing that it is going to take a few more weeks longer. I don't think anyone was intending to rush the process, but it is a very tight timeline."

Aaron Martinez may be reached prospector@utep.edu.