Former SBP hopefuls weigh in on legislation

After taking the leading roles in the drama of last year's election for student body president, former candidates are looking favorably at legislation that Student Congress is set to vote on tonight.

Members of Congress will vote on amendments that include defining negative campaigning, requiring electronic documentation for signature petitions and signing multiple petitions.

Many former candidates said last year's election sparked the changes.

"There were things that happened last year, and nobody knew how to deal with them properly," said Ashley Castevens, former candidate for student body president.

Former candidate Matt Liles, who now serves as the UNC solicitor general and a leader of a committee revising the Student Code, expressed a similar sentiment.

"It was needed in general, except last year's campaign pushed more support for it," he said.

One of the proposed amendments that Congress will decide on includes defining negative campaigning, which candidates said they felt was unclear during the last election.

Former candidate Lily West said each campaign had difficulty determining the specific definition of negative campaigning.

"I think it is very important to clearly articulate what negative campaigning is," West said. "Last year, we ran into so much trouble - not just our campaign, every candidate with the Code - because there was no way to pin down what negative campaigning is."

Student Body President Matt Calabria said the clear definition will help candidates to know they can criticize others' platforms.

"I think this will help the situation by clarifying what can and cannot be said," he said.

But James Riley, a Congress representative for North Campus, said the definition is necessary but was not an issue in last year's election.

"I didn't think that negative campaigning was a serious issue last year, but it could be," he said.

Luke Farley, chairman of the Rules and Judiciary Committee, voted against the proposal last week during the committee meeting.

Farley said the changes are unnecessary because slander and libel are already illegal and the Code already includes provisions for tearing down signs.

"It got to the point where I felt like the proposal in the end was to regulate niceness," Farley said.

A proposal to require candidates to transfer their petitions to an electronic spreadsheet also awaits Congress' approval.

Calabria said spreadsheets would be an easy way for the Board of Elections to verify the petitions - a difficult task last year with eight candidates on the ballot.

Congress also will vote on an amendment that would allow students to sign multiple petitions.

Calabria said this change would defeat the purpose of the petitions, which is to show that candidates have support from the students.

But Farley said that from his personal experience, many students do not know the purpose of the petition or whether they have already signed one.

"People signing these are seldom an expression of support," he said. "The truth is, when people are signing, they don't know."

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