Union president pushes back against SEC cease and desist

In light of the Student Election Commission’s issuing of a cease and desist order to Student Union executive board members urging them to put a stop to their endorsements of the Build BU slate, Union members have expressed their outrage with the ruling.

The SEC, the student body that oversees Union elections, ruled 6-0 on Tuesday to urge Executive Vice President Dan Ellis, a College of Arts and Sciences senior, and other Union members to discontinue using the Union Twitter and Facebook accounts to campaign for Build BU, one of two student slates running to become next year’s executive board.

“It is clear to the SEC that at least one member of the Union Executive board [Ellis] has failed to respect the boundaries between personal advocacy and official endorsement,” the SEC said in its ruling.

“By integrating with the BuildBU slate (“BuildBU”) as a campaign staff and assuming a central role in their campaign, Mr. Ellis has made it nearly impossible to distinguish between his role as Vice President and his role as an advocate for BuildBU.”

In an email to the commission, Union President Arthur Emma, a CAS senior, suggested that the SEC was taking bribes from another student slate, The Rhettvolution, to target Build BU and Union. Emma also said that he would “devote every last effort I have to campaigning for [Build BU for] the rest of the election,if the ruling were not reversed.

“This election period [the SEC has] intruded upon every possible boundary, and your actions are completely impermissible,” Emma said in the email.

“Although up until now, I have tried to be gracious, all of you need to learn your place. Your job is to simply regulate the election and to do so by checking the actions of slate members, not to give empty orders to the current leaders of the student body.”

The SEC responded to Emma’s email stating that there is no process for appealing the commission’s ruling when it comes to cease and desist orders, “as all such orders are final.”

Ellis said in a phone interview that he was angered by the SEC’s ruling.

“To me its clear that [the SEC] a problem, and it’s the first of many problems,” Ellis said.

“I think that it is unprecedented,” Ellis said of the SEC’s decision.  “as much as they like to say that Union is not involved [in this election], they wouldn’t be making this big a deal of it if we hadn’t already gotten so much done this year…obviously I’m going to stay hands off in respect to their decision, and to make sure that BuildBU isn’t punished for this.”

While the SEC has no official power over Union, the commission said in its ruling that continued campaigning by Ellis and other Union members would warrant Build BU’s disqualification from the election.

Build BU candidate for vice president Alex Staikos, a School of Management freshman, said that he wished the SEC had informed his slate of their ruling sooner and that he was not sure of the reasoning behind the cease and desist order.

“In a real election, the office president will endorse somebody…I don’t understand why Dan or Arthur can’t choose to endorse somebody as BU students who just so happen to carry that title which should be important,” he said in a phone interview.

However, Rhettvolution candidate for secretary Maria Sinatra, a SMG sophomore, said her slate would continue campaigning as they have throughout the election period. She said the SEC’s ruling had little effect on their campaign.

“We were aware of the rule but our campaign has not really focused on the negative actions of the current Union or other slates,” Sinatra said in a phone interview. “We’ve tried to focus on the positive changes we want to make within the student body.”

Staff writers Chris Gambon and Saba Hamedy contributed to the reporting of this article.