Ammunition bill veto not overridden

Efforts to revive a vetoed ammunition funding bill failed at Tuesday’s Student Congress meeting.

Members did not reach the two-thirds majority required to override Student Body President Will Leimenstoll’s veto. The bill, which passed Student Congress earlier this month, would have made it more difficult for groups to receive funding for ammunition.

Austin Root, author and sponsor of the bill, made a move to reconsider the bill after the override failed, but the motion did not receive the required majority vote.

Leimenstoll said he vetoed the bill March 19 due to a lack of debate before the vote.

Speaker Paige Comparato and Speaker Pro Tempore Connor Brady both received ethics charges related to the bill earlier this month.

Josh Aristy said he and rules and judiciary committee chairman Travis Crayton filed charges against Comparato because of an email she sent to the Student Congress listserv.

He said the email concerned a lawsuit filed with the Student Supreme Court by Student Congress members. The suit was filed against Student Congress due to invalid voting procedures at the March 5 meeting when the bill was voted on.

Comparato was not at the March 5 meeting, so Brady presided.

Comparato said the email intended to inform of the lawsuit and explain what happened at the meeting.

But Aristy said she used language that was offensive to him and Crayton and abused her power as speaker by using the listserv — which includes members of the Student Supreme Court — to spread her opinion on the lawsuit.

“I don’t think anything in my email was inappropriate,” Comparato said. “Everything that I said was factual, and everything was backed up and supported by claims that I’ve received this year by members of Congress.”

At Tuesday night’s meeting, Comparato moved to overturn her censure, given at last week’s ethics committee meeting. But the censure was upheld after debate.

Two charges were brought against Brady.

One, which accused Brady of improperly handling voting procedure during the March 5 vote on the ammunition bill, was dropped.

Brady was censured for the second charge, which involved the spreading of a Facebook conversation between himself and Root.

Root said Brady shared the conversation, and ultimately Michael Braxton, a representative, received it, sharing it with the entire Student Congress and claiming it showed that the bill was discriminatory.

Root said the conversation only pertained to his views on funding for ammunition.

Brady said Root never told him not to share the conversation.

Crayton moved to overturn Brady’s censure at Tuesday’s meeting, but after debate, the censure was sustained.

Contact the desk editor at state@dailytarheel.com.