The Interview: Deanna Santoro ?ghts for the spirit of the Student Code she spent years reforming

Deanna Santoro’s surprise resignation Monday morning from her role as speaker of Student Congress marks only the beginning of her effort to send shock waves through student government.

Santoro is filing suit against the Board of Elections for failure to rule at all on certain sections of the Code and ruling improperly on other sections.

Now that she’s in the game, Santoro wants an injunction on the results of today’s election until her case is resolved.

It’s no secret that this has been one of the most tumultuous election seasons in recent memory. Two candidates — Rick Ingram and Ian Lee — have seemed to stretch the Student Code to its absolute limits, if not shattered them entirely.

Yet the BOE has inadequately addressed these concerns. Election regulation doesn’t get more laissez-faire than this.

Santoro, who resigned because those in her position are prohibited by the Code from making “any statement against a campaign or candidate,” airs her grievances in her virtually empty former office in the student government suite. Only a few personal items and snacks stacked in a chair are left to indicate anyone inhabited it.

A reputation for reform

Santoro has become known for a stubborn reform-mindedness. She said she was inspired to join Congress after the controversy surrounding former speaker Tim Nichols and his abysmal leadership. Back then, Congress was ripe for change.

As chairwoman of the Rules and Judiciary Committee she embarked on systematic reform of the Code — an effort she continued until her resignation.

As speaker, Santoro continued these reform efforts along with fellow Congress member Zach De La Rosa.

Now that she’s gone, De La Rosa shouldn’t let that effort go. And he ought to consider pursuing future reform as speaker.

But what good is reform when it isn’t enforced?

Controversy

Santoro learned this year that the battle is hardly won by reworking the Code.

“What I voted on in my mind in Student Congress, it’s not what’s being upheld by the Board of Elections,” Santoro said.

Her complaints are twofold.

First, she is challenging the BOE’s ruling in December on a provision of the Code that says the student body secretary can’t participate in a campaign for elected office. Lee, who is student body secretary, has done it anyway with the BOE’s blessing.

It’s a feat of incompetent interpretation. Not only does it contradict plain meaning, but it also allowed a candidate for student body president to be in charge of updating election law in the Code.

The shoddiness of that decision might explain why the BOE is reluctant to rule on another section of the Code which makes failure to resign from an executive branch office grounds for disqualification.

BOE refusal to rule on that section is Santoro’s other complaint — and her tipping point.

After a final conversation last night with Andrew Phillips, chairman of the BOE, she sent out an e-mail to Congress announcing her resignation.

Suing for change

Santoro admits it’s a paradox: wanting to carry out a speaker’s mandate of supporting the Code but not being able to defend it while being speaker.

She hoped that someone else would step up.

“It’s been very upsetting to not watch that happen,” she said. “I honestly had faith in the system.”

Santoro, like the editorial board, said she thinks the obvious conflicts of interest presented by the BOE’s rulings are unacceptable.

Original intent is a legitimate legal interpretation. It’s hard to imagine writers of the Code meant to allow officers to keep their positions while running for office.

But arbitrariness has instead prevailed. And it’s made a mockery of the Code and the election process.

Santoro is graduating in May. With only a few months left, this may be her last chance to affect student government at UNC.

Santoro is sometimes confrontational, always committed to reform. Prevailing in this suit would be a fitting conclusion.