Congress OKs bill limiting candidates' campaigning

After an extremely heated debate, Student Congress members voted Tuesday night to define negative campaigning within the Student Code, despite concerns that doing so would limit students' free speech.

The legislation, approved by 13 members, states that "no candidate or campaign worker shall be allowed to make an unsubstantiated, subjective, and defamatory remark about another candidate or campaign worker. Personal attacks do not include critical analysis of another campaign or its platform."

Five members voted against the legislation, and Speaker Charlie Anderson abstained.

Anderson introduced the amendment to a bill passed by the Rules and Judiciary Committee on Oct. 5. That bill defined personal attacks as "slanderous or libelous public remarks or actions by a candidate or campaign worker meant to defame, disparage, or cause injury to another candidate or their campaign."

Anderson said that, if Congress was going to define personal attacks at all, the wording of the bill should be as specific as possible.

Last year, student body president candidates and campaign workers were unclear about what the Code allowed regarding critical analysis of another candidate's platform or public remarks about another candidate's character or behavior.

Members aimed to create a concrete, enforceable definition of negative campaigning to prevent any confusion from reoccurring.

Luke Farley, chairman of the Rules and Judiciary Committee, said the definition of negative campaigning is subjective and legislation defining it would do more harm than good.

"It's going to open up a can of worms that may cause more problems than it solves," he said. "Personal attacks, even if we define it, is still going to be extremely subjective."

Parker Wiseman, chairman of the Ethics Committee, said argument about the bill was rooted in the concept of free speech.

"The cost of free speech is always high," Wiseman said. "I think, personally, the rewards of accepting those costs are even higher."

He said the student body should judge candidates based ultimately on their remarks, instead of leaving the opinion open to interpretation by a small committee and thereby bypassing the democratic process.

"We recognize it's going to come with consequences," Wiseman said. "But we're willing to swallow that in the name of free speech."

Principal Clerk P.J. Lusk said the legislation was "egregious" and presented a problem in that Board of Elections members cannot fairly assess the subjectivity of a remark.

Congress members stressed the need for defining personal attacks in the Code. They said that, if a decision was left to the Honor System, a potential violation might not be evaluated before an election's end.

Others said that the BOE should be trusted to make those decisions.

Anderson noted that students who attended the public hearing said there should be a stronger, more explicit and enforceable definition of personal attacks in the Code.

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.