Update, Thursday, April 19 at 4:45 p.m.:
After gathering enough members to meet quorum, the judicial review board voted 2-1 in an emergency meeting to approve the language of the senate’s proposed amendments and allow them to be placed on the ballot. The elections will proceed as planned, with voting starting at 12:01 a.m. on Monday, April 22 and continuing through Friday, May 3.
Update: Administration steps in and encourages election delay
Update, Thursday, April 19 at 4:45 p.m.:
After gathering enough members to meet quorum, the judicial review board voted 2-1 in an emergency meeting to approve the language of the senate’s proposed amendments and allow them to be placed on the ballot.
The elections will proceed as planned, with voting starting at 12:01 a.m. on Monday, April 22 and continuing through Friday, May 3.
Update, Thursday, April 19 at 4:09 p.m.:
The university administration has stepped in and is encouraging PSU’s student government to push pause on its election next week.
This morning, judicial review board Chief Justice Aubrey Hoffman announced that amendments proposed by Portland State’s student government senate would not appear on next week’s ballot because paperwork for the amendments’ addition was not submitted on time and according to procedure.
But later today, members of Associated Students of Portland State University’s senate and judicial review board, as well as members of the Student Activities and Leadership Programs, met with the vice president of Student Affairs, Jackie Balzer, to resolve a dispute over who had the authority to decide if the election can be delayed long enough for the judicial review board to sign off on the senate’s proposed amendments and allow them to be on the ballot.
In the meeting, Balzer recommended that the JRB delay the elections.
“I support our team in saying to provide a delay to resolve the issues. They’ve built enough evidence to say there’s unresolved issues that we need confidence that all procedures have been followed.” However, Balzer also left the ultimate decision to the ASPSU members, saying she trusted that they would be able to resolve their differences.
The conflict stemmed from a disagreement over whether the JRB will hold an emergency meeting to discuss the amendments. SALP Associate Director Katie Jundt said that because it was impossible for the ballot to be redesigned without the amendment in time, the JRB must either hold an emergency meeting or delay the elections.
Hoffman disagreed, sticking with her decision that since the amendments weren’t submitted for review in time, they would not appear on the ballot.
As of 3 p.m., senate members and JRB members were discussing delaying elections for a week, until Friday, April 26. The election would run until May 3.
However, the final decision is in the hands of the JRB, who will meet on Thursday, unless they are able to gather enough members together to meet the quorum required for a public meeting.
“There is some omitted and unclear information in this article that I wish to address. The Senate believed that it had followed the constitutional amendment approval timeline that was designed with the Judicial Review Board. When they were told that their amendments were not reviewed by the JRB on Thursday as was planned, and were not going on the ballot, they sought to convince the JRB to reconsider. The Administration “stepped in” only because of the proximity of the elections so that ASPSU could resolve the dispute over the timeline.
To be clear: the conflict did not stem “from a disagreement over whether the JRB [would] hold an emergency meeting to discuss the amendments.” That was merely one course of action that the Senate proposed for the JRB to take so that there would be no delay of the elections. The “conflict” was merely a misunderstanding between two branches of student government over their different interpretations of the constitutional amendment approval timeline. The Administration was helpful in facilitating this discussion. I’ve been told by both parties that Friday’s discussion between the Senate and JRB representatives remained cordial throughout the day as both sides were able to come to an amicable agreement.”