Grievances are nothing new in ASUO elections
■The last four years have seen
an explosion of grievances
that have disrupted elections
and upstaged the candidates
By Emily Gust
Oregon Daily Emerald
Over the past few years, ASUO
elections have brought with them
downpours of grievances.
Last week, ASUO Executive can
didate Jeff Oliver accused fellow can
didates Bret Jacobson and Matt Cook
of breaking election rules by distrib
uting campaign fliers in the residence
halls. The ASUO Elections Board de
cided in favor of Oliver’s grievance
Thursday, and removed Jacobson
and Cook from the ballot.
But hours before the general elec
tion was set to begin Monday, the
ASUO Constitution Court agreed to
hear Jacobson’s and Cook’s appeal,
splitting the general election into
two parts and postponing the sec
ond half until spring term.
Such elections complications are
certainly not new.
For the past four years, a flurry of
election-time grievances have targeted
everything from tennis balls to mega
phones —and they have disrupted the
election process, causing delays in
both results and election dates.
Calendar
Wednesday, March 7
Center for the Study of Women in
Society Wednesdays at Noon:
Stephanie Wood, women's studies,
discusses "Mexico's Founding Moth
ers and Fathers: Early Mesoameri
can Gender Complementarity?"
Noon-1 p.m., Room 330 Hendricks
Hall. Free. For information, call
346-5015.
Workshop/Presentation: Luis Ure
na, president, Farmworker Union
of the Dominican Republic, and Ra
mon Ramirez, president, PCUN, dis
cuss "The Impact of Globalization
on Farmworkers and Garment
Workers in the U.S. and Abroad."
Workshop at 4 p.m.; community
presentation from 5:30-7 p.m.,
Gumwood Room, Erb Memorial
Union. Free. For information, call
346-3700.
Russian Film Series: ” Kolyma," Part
2, is a prize-winning documentary
on Soviet forced-labor camps in
Kolyma, in Russian with English
su btitles. 6:30 p. m., Room 115
Pacific Hall. Free. For information,
call 346-5051.
Former ASUO Vice President
Ben Unger said it has not always
been that way.
“It wasn’t such a grievance-filled
world back in the day,” Unger said.
But for the past four years, beginning
with Unger’s run for the ASUO Execu
tive in 1997, grievances have become
the major players in the election
process instead of the candidates.
When Unger ran with Bill Miner
in 1997, the general elections were
postponed to deal with a grievance
filed against the pair, even though
they had won outright during the
primary election with more than 50
percent of the vote.
“Eagerly wanting to get the word
out, we put up posters on telephone
polls,” Unger said, noting it was
against a city ordinance, but that the
two didn’t know. “That’s all we did,
[but] it was scandalous enough.”
The following year, the number of
grievances seemed to explode.
Grievances appeared even before
the primaries began April 15,1998,
and elections finally ended in mid
May after the court heard the last six.
One of the bigger complaints ac
cused Unger of supporting Execu
tive candidates Geneva Wortman
and Morgan Cowling’s campaign
while he was in office, sparking de
bate over where the line is crossed
when one sits in the Executive seat.
“When I was in student govern
ment, I was trying to live in two dis
tinct realities,’’ Unger said. “That kind
of got me into a little bit of trouble. ”
The grievance accused Unger of
helping at a voting booth while at the
same time remaining an active mem
ber of the Wortman and Cowling cam
paign, an action that ultimately result
ed in the court reprimanding Unger.
One grievance the same year tar
geted a member of the anti-OSPIRG
Honesty campaign for use of a mega
phone on 13th Avenue, and another
targeted an Executive candidate for
using tennis balls to get out her mes
sage during the campaign.
“That was a big violation because
they were giving away a product,”
ASUO Elections Coordinator
Shantell Rice said. But “I mean, it
was a tennis ball. Who cares?”
Many of the grievances called for
invalidation of previous election re
sults and for a special election, but
neither resulted.
In 1999, Executive candidates
Wylie Chen and Mitra Anoushira
vani faced complaints after they slid
campaign fliers underneath some
doors in the residence halls.
“I was an RA, so I was very aware of
what housing policy was as far as ad
vertisements go,” Anoushiravani
said. “I know for a fact that we didn’t
do anything wrong. ”
Candidates Dan Reid and Matt
Swanson filed the grievance. But by the
time it was considered, they had al
ready lost to Chen and Anoushiravani,
who had garnered more than 50 per
cent of the vote in the primary elections.
“We beat them so badly in the pri
maries that the grievance didn’t really
hold any weight,” Anoushiravani said.
The court never resolved the issue,
which has left the board without a
precedent to follow when consider
ing Oliver’s grievance this year.
More recently, grievances kept last
year’s primary and general election re
sults a secret long after voting ended.
In that election, Executive candi
dates C.J. Gabbe and Peter Larson
were accused of providing “a thing
of value” during an International
Student Association coffee hour,
which is against election rules.
“We believed all the way through
— I still do — that we didn’t break
that rule,” said Melissa Unger, Gabbe
and Larson’s campaign manager.
The Elections Board decided to
remove Gabbe and Larson from the
primary ballot because it believed
they violated election rules, but the
court replaced them after deciding
to hear their appeal.
Back on the ballot for the general
election, Gabbe and Larson faced yet
another grievance similar to the first.
That grievance withheld general elec
tion results until after spring break.
Melissa Unger still believes that
the grievances, mixed with the me
dia coverage, were the undoing of
Gabbe and Larson’s campaign.
“Us being on the front page pretty
much every day for a month and a
half with all the talk about griev
ances didn’t help,” she said. “In
stead of a campaign about issues, it
became a campaign about why C.J.
and Peter were so bad because they
did this horrible thing.”
The explosion of grievances dur
ing the past four years is curious, but
some people have their theories.
“I think when it comes down to
it, the really competitive tickets are
the ones that really, really watch
each other,” Rice said.
From the perspective of someone
who has been a target in the past,
Ben Unger said he thinks the griev
ance explosion stems directly from
the way the board and the court
have handled grievances.
“The consequences became so ex
treme, then it became worth it for peo
ple,” Ben Unger said. “Once you start
enforcing rules where people can be
removed from the ballot, and if you’re
losing, then it becomes a strategy. ”
State Supreme Court hears case at law school
■The justices’ visit gives
University law students the
opportunity to seethe
Supreme Court in action
By Brooke Ross
Oregon Daily Emerald
Instead of convening in Salem as
usual, the Oregon Supreme Court met
at the University’s School of Law on
Tuesday to hear arguments on the con
stitutionality of a search-and-seizure
case involving drug paraphernalia.
The annual event, sponsored by
the law school’s Legal Research and
Writing Program, included a visit by
the state Supreme Court to give law
students and the Eugene communi
ty the opportunity to see the state’s
highest court in action.
Chief Justice Wallace Carson, along
with six other Oregon justices, lis
tened to the case of Jeffrey Cook, who
was arrested Sept. 8, 1996 for drug
possession. Cook was convicted, but
his lawyers are contending that the ar
resting officers performed an illegal
search. State lawyers, however, argue
that Cook’s rights were never violated
when he was arrested.
Following the court session, the
justices answered audience ques
ADELL MCMILLAN ART GALLERY, EMU
MARCH 1 - APRIL 13, 2001
OPENING RECEPTION MARCH 7,7:00 PM
LECTURE BY PACIFIC UNIVERSITY’S JEFF BARLOW
PERFORMANCE BY GAMELAN SARI PANDHAWA
tions about the state court process.
Members of the court argued
whether or not officers violated
Article 1, Section 9 of the Oregon
Constitution, which prohibits po
lice officers from conducting un
reasonable searches and seizures.
Cook was arrested when two Eu
gene police officers responded to
a report of people trying to break
into parked vehicles. When the
officers arrived on the scene, one
noticed Cook in the parking lot
sorting through the contents of a
duffel bag. After Cook denied the
bag belonged to him, the officers
searched through it and found
white powder, later determined
to be a controlled substance. They
also found a syringe, a knife and
two spoons. Cook then admitted
the bag was his and was charged
with unlawful possession.
Dan Maloney, deputy public de
fender and one of Cook’s attorneys,
said Cook did not give consent to the
officers to search the bag, so it was un
constitutional for them to conduct
the search without a warrant.
“A person does not have to accept
their right of privacy in order to have
the right,” Maloney said. “What you
have here is a warrantless search
based on reasonable suspicion. ”
Jennifer Scott Lloyd, assistant at
torney general, said that because
Cook denied the bag was his, it was
not an unconstitutional search.
“The officer searched the bag
only after the defendant tried to sep
arate himself from it,” she said.
Throughout both presentations,
the justices interjected questions
and comments to clarify the various
statements from lawyers.
The justices, particularly Justice
Paul DeMuniz, had several ques
tions for Lloyd.
DeMuniz asked Lloyd what the con
stitutional significance was of Cook
claiming the bag did not belong to him.
She said simply denying owner
ship of the bag was not enough to
clear Cook, and if a person dis
claims ownership, the police can
conduct a search.
After hearing both sides, the jus
tices took questions from the audi
ence, and Justice Ted Kulongoski ex
plained the process of deciding a case.
“What you see today is just the end
result of a very large process to get
this case here,” Kulongoski said.
He said for a case to reach the Ore
gon Supreme Court, a judge recom
mends the justices take a case. The
justices then look over the case and
vote on whether or not to hear it. He
The State of Oregon
vs, Jeffrey Dale Cook:
Cook was convicted of unlawful
possession of a controlled substance
after he admitted to police officers a
duffel bag containing a controlled
substance and other drug
paraphernalia belonged to him.
His lawyers argue Article 1, Section
9 of the Oregon Constitution, which
prohibits police from conducting
unreasonable searches and
seizures, was violated.
The Oregon Supreme Court is
reviewing the case.
said three out of seven members must
agree to take a case.
For Jason Guinasso, a first-year law
student, this was his first time seeing
the Oregon Supreme Court in action.
“It wasn’t as tense as I thought it
would be,” he said. “It was a lot
more of a collegial atmosphere. ”
Guinasso said the case was highly
technical, but he did have an opin
ion in the end.
“I kind of felt like the state had a
clearer case,” he said. “It was easier
to get my mind around the theories
they were proposing.”
■ ■ ffcjiIf
I 'W 9 jT** * i
'iCc
JH
n i
11 ni f
In f \ V
MELLOW YELLOW, S
Speed, AM/FM/Cassette,
A/C, Security System,
Keyless Entry and Monel
*mD3Q2
4-MOTION, Auto,
AM/FM/Cassette, A/C,
Security System, Keyless
Entry end More!
0W2O124
‘You don't have to pay more to get more!'
Offer expires 3/12/01
Pictures for illustration
purposes only.
Priyerswanted:
2300 West 7th • EUGENE • 343-8811 • www.sheppardmotors.com