Editor’s Note: Ben Bowman was the Emerald’s Opinion Editor earlier this year. He no longer works for the Emerald.

The ASUO Constitution Court received notice that Mighty Oregon presidential candidate Ben Bowman has withdrawn from the 2014 ASUO Elections.

The court accepted Bowman’s resignation and will be handling all elections issues until a new elections board coordinator is appointed by the ASUO Executive. Due to a disagreement with UO Administration over Bowman’s reinstatement, the entire Elections Board resigned on April 4. Bowman was initially removed from the ballot unamiously by both the board and the court early last week following a grievance filed against him by freshman presidential candidate Thomas Tullis.

The immediate benefisciary of Bowman’s resignation is Taylor Allison, the again current presidential candidate of Mighty Oregon. Allison was previously announced as the candidate on April 2, but was removed two days later by the university’s decision to reinstate Bowman.

“I respectfully acknowledge that Ben Bowman’s resignation was to help our team succeed in these elections,” Allison said. “As a slate, we are responding to the change in leadership and are excited to move forward as a unified team.”

Allison confirmed that Bowman announced his resignation to the campaign on Saturday. The Mighty Oregon campaign also released a statement about it’s leadership changes.

“After getting more information the Mighty Oregon campaign understands that Ben Bowman’s actions may have been misinterpreted and we support the continued investigation. We appreciate Ben Bowman’s leadership and respect his decision to put our team ahead of himself. Moving forward, we’re excited to have Taylor Allison leading our team and we’re anxious to begin talking to students about our ideas,” the statement said.

Mighty Oregon member Emma Silvers-Harnly still believes strongly in the campaign’s platform and goals, despite recent changes.

“We’re excited to move forward with the core fundamental values that have defined our campaign from the beginning,” Silvers-Harnly  said. “Obviously it matters who the presidential candidate is but the core fundamental values and what we want to get done this year are staying the same.”

The ASUO Constitution Court has clarified that the elections will still take place April 14 and that all campaigns now have 48 hours to submit changes to their slates.

The Ducks Like You campaign is also ready to move on with the elections.

“We’re really ready to move forward from all this drama and begin to return the investment of students into the ASUO,” presidential candidate Beatriz Guiterrez said. “One of the ways that we want to do that is by making a whole new platform issue addressing what students have been talking about with the recording and all that to address student autonomy, transparency and accountability.”

Fresh Start Oregon’s presidential candidate Thomas Tullis declined to comment on Bowman’s resignation. Tullis was arrested on April 6 for illegally obtaining communications by allegedly taping conversations between himself, Bowman and other members of the Mighty Oregon campaign.

Bowman could not be reached for comment.

After a dramatic weekend left the status of spring elections up in the air, ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz filed for a motion for clarification to the Constitution Court on Monday night.

Dotters-Katz is asking the Constitution Court to declare that administration had no authority to step in on the matter of  the Tullis v. Bowman grievance last Friday. The Elections Board resigned after the administration delayed the elections and put Bowman back on the ballot. Both the Elections Board and the Constitution Court had previously ruled to remove Bowman from the ballot after a grievance filed by fellow presidential candidate Thomas Tullis cited instances of alleged harassment, intimidation and bribery.

Dotters-Katz is seeking a solution to the jumbled election timeline outside of administration.

“We’re not complying with the administration’s demand, and if need be we’ll proceed with our own elections,” Dotters-Katz said.

The second request in the motion asks the Constitution Court to guide the ASUO through elections without violating conflicting rules in the organization’s constitution. The constitution lays out a lengthy process of appointing and hiring members of the Elections Board, but also states that elections must occur by April 30. Without clarification, any action would likely violate the constitution.

“We want the court to let us appoint an Elections Board Chairman in an immediate fashion,” Dotters-Katz said.

If the Constitution Court allows, the president could appoint a new Elections Board coordinator at this Wednesday’s ASUO Senate meeting.

Elections are currently scheduled to begin April 14.

Motion for Clarification

ASUO presidential candidate Thomas Tullis was released from the Lane County jail on Sunday at 3:45 p.m. Tullis was arrested earlier in the day inside the University of Oregon’s Riley residence hall for two counts of violating the communications law, ORS 165.540.

“Usually I don’t plan on getting arrested before breakfast. I like to have breakfast first,” Tullis said. “I’m alright now and certainly not planning on going back to jail, ever.”

Tullis was unsure exactly why he was booked. According to him, the law enforcement officials with whom he spoke had a vague understanding of how he had broken the law.

“I really hope that the DA doesn’t file this case because it’s a little absurd,” Tullis said. ”Nobody in there knew. The sheriff didn’t even know what the ORS statute was. I was the first one who ever came in for that.”

Despite the arrest, Tullis plans to continue his campaign for the ASUO presidency.

“I am 100 percent running for president,” he said.

Interested in more information about the ASUO 2014 elections? View all of our coverage here.

During the first ASUO Senate meeting of the term, Sen. Nick Hughes addressed issues within the senate body. Hughes mentioned mutual back-scratching between senators and a general lack of compromise within the body.

“I’m really just here to beg you guys to take a step back and rest your pride. A compromise is not a loss,” Hughes said

The ASUO Women’s Center presented two special requests — both were approved. The senate gave the Women’s Center $3,092 for the Take Back the Night event. The funding was originally coming from SASS, Sexual Assault Support Services, but the SASS budget is currently unsigned and therefore cannot access the funds promised to Take Back the Night.

The Student Legal Advocates for Tribal Sovereignty and the Industrial Designers Society of America both received funds to attend their respective conferences.

The Chinese Philanthropic Leadership Association received $2,000 to go toward the “Hall of Fame: The Voice of U of O” event. The event will be an American Idol type singing competition. Tickets for the final showcase will be $5 for students.

The ASUO office has moved to Mac Court, otherwise known as EMU South and senators will be holding office hours there spring term.

Graduate students make up 15 percent of the University of Oregon but zero percent of the ASUO senate. With the notable exception of ASUO president Sam Dotters-Katz, graduate students aren’t very present in the ASUO. However, the upcoming spring election could change graduate student senate representation.

Constitution Court rejected a ballot measure proposed by Lamar Wise regarding senate reapportionment to increase graduate student representation within the ASUO senate but approved a similar ballot measure by senator Amy Jones weeks later. 

Wise’s ballot measure would have allowed there to be four unique graduate student seats without adding any new seats to senate. The ballot measure submitted by Wise was rejected for its language and potential to violate the ASUO constitution.

Jones’ ballot measure would add three seats to ASUO senate whereas Wise’s ballot measure would allow four graduate student seats within the current number of seats in the ASUO senate.

“The major difference is that it’s actually adding seats to senate,” Wise said. “So there would be more senators. But mine was more so about keeping the same amount and reapportioning the seats to make sure that there was graduate student representation.”

If passed, Jones’ ballot measure would expand the senate to 24 members, including graduate students. The current ASUO senate is comprised of 21 senators: ten elected at large, ten academic seats and one non-voting freshman representative.

Any changes made by the ballot measure would take effect during the next scheduled reapportionment in the spring of 2015, based on that year’s student population.

If passed, the ballot measure would not automatically give all three new senate seats to graduate students.

“What it does is (increase) the amount of academic seats but makes the math work so that there will be a graduate student seat,” Jones said. “Because they have so many students in the graduate programs right now, they’ll already have guaranteed one seat but they might even have two if they have enough students in those programs at the time of reapportionment.”

According to Jones, adding more senate seats would also help to correct the representation of academic majors after population growth.

“In years past there were nine academic senators for around 18,000 students and as the population grew they added another academic senator so we now have ten,” Jones said. “But now if you look at the math you have approximately 24,600-ish students and they are trying to fit more and more students into the same number of academic seats so it’s harder to represent that many people.”

The Ducks Like You campaign has endorsed the proposed ballot measure. The Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation currently sponsors the Ducks Like You campaign; DLY is currently the only campaign with graduate students on its slate.

“One of our main things in the campaign in trying to reach out to a lot of the community that haven’t been represented in the student government,” DLY presidential candidate Beatriz Gutierrez said.

Week one brings some changes to the Thomas Tullis’ presidential campaign. Tullis’ former unofficial campaign manager Lindy Mabuya was replaced by Jake Bender. While Mabuya claims that she was never officially Tullis’ campaign manager, Tullis and ASUO Elections Board Coordinator MacGregor Ehlen confirms Mabuya’s involvement in Tullis’ campaign. Bender is a freshman who was previously involved with Tullis’ campaign as an advisor.

“I believe in what Thomas is trying to do,” Bender said. “It’s very exciting and I think we have a really good chance of winning.”

The Tullis campaign also added another vice presidential candidate, Matthew Gonzalez, earlier this week. Gonzalez will be replacing Win Min who withdrew from the race March 17. Gonzalez will be an appointed vice presidential candidate and will not appear on the ballot. Gonzalez met Tullis in their shared residence hall and believes in his campaign platform.

“A lot of his platform has to do with dealing with unnecessary spending,” Gonzalez said. “That’s what really attracts me.”

The campaign’s executive ticket now consists of Thomas Tullis as the presidential candidate with Matthew Gonzalez and Beau Acoba as vice presidential candidates.

Editor’s Note: Ben Bowman was the Emerald’s Opinion Editor earlier this year. He no longer works for the Emerald.

The ASUO Constitution Court upheld the Elections Board’s decision to disqualify Ben Bowman as a presidential candidate in the 2014-2015 elections in a decision made just before 10 p.m. on Sunday March 30. This comes after presidential candidate Thomas Tullis filed a grievance against Bowman and members of the Mighty Oregon campaign for intimidation, harassment and bribery. On March 20, the ASUO Elections Board ruled to disqualify Bowman from the ASUO elections ballot.

“The Election Board’s decision unquestioningly ratifies an outrageous attempt by Thomas Tullis to disqualify a competitor for the ASUO Presidency,” Bowman said in his appeal of the Elections Board’s decision.

In the appeal of Thomas Tullis v. Ben Bowman, the ASUO Constitution Court stated that Bowman violated elections rules 1.1, 1.2, 3.4, 6.4, 7.13.1 and 9.8. However, the court did note that it did not consider the issue of the Mighty Oregon campaign offering Tullis an appointment to be a form of bribery, as was alleged in Tullis’ grievance.

The court found that the actions of freshman representative Emily Wu did not warrant her removal from the ballot. Instead Wu and Mighty Oregon are suspended from advertising her candidacy for 72 hours.

“I’m incredibly disappointed in the decision, I haven’t broken any rules at all and any impartial analysis of the situation would confirm that,” Bowman said. “It’s sad that overzealous College Republicans — one former Vice President and the sitting President — are in positions where it’s their job to be neutral. They obviously couldn’t resist the opportunity to take a swipe at their opponents. I’m glad that the other target of the Elections Board, Emily Wu, has been placed back on the ballot.”

Elections Board Coordinator MacGregor Ehlen maintains that the ruling had nothing to do with the politics of College Republicans or College Democrats. Ehlen, who is a former vice-chair of College Republicans, has not been associated with the group since last spring and Ben Bowman currently serves as the president of College Democrats. Ehlen stresses that the decision of the Elections Board had nothing to do with political parties.

“In my personal opinion I think there are some people who definitely got away with a lot that didn’t receive anything, people who were directly involved with this who were campaign workers who cannot be sanctioned by the Board,” Ehlen said. “I think it’s good that they upheld the majority of our decision.”

9 C.C.

ASUO Senators Liz Avalos and Alivia Feliciano were publicly confused for one another at a February senate meeting. It wasn’t the first time. The two Latina senators have served together on the ASUO Senate for the past two terms. According to Feliciano, the mix-ups started in October as comical, then became irritating and now upsetting.

“It’s a testament to the culture we have in the senate that ignorance is bliss,” Feliciano said. “These are supposed to be some of the most informed people on campus.”

“This is the second term and people are still making these mistakes. It’s like, how do you not know my face?” Avalos said. 

In the upcoming spring elections, students will be voting on a cultural competency ballot measure proposed by Avalos at a February meeting and approved by constitution court.

“Everyone comes from different backgrounds, whether it’s area of campus, area of the nation, area of the world,” Senator Helena Schlegel said. “I think it’s important to at least be aware and at least have an understanding of these differences that you’ll be in an environment with before taking office, rather than already being in these situations and not knowing how to properly behave and act.”

The current ASUO rules regarding cultural competency do not require elected officials to go through cultural competency training before they take office — instead they could be in office for up to five months without cultural competency training.

“We know that cultural competency trainings don’t make somebody completely culturally competent because it’s an ongoing process,” Avalos said. “Culture changes and environments change, we just want this to be an awareness tool.”

Senators Avalos, Feliciano and Schlegel wrote the ballot measure the same day that it was proposed to the ASUO Senate as a result of many cultural competency discussions.

“We were talking with Sam Dotters-Katz about the experiences that I’ve been having and the experiences that Alivia Feliciano has been having on senate,” Avalos said. “We keep getting mixed up a lot, which is not OK.”

Avalos hopes that the ballot measure will make cultural competency a priority for the ASUO. She thinks that the ballot measure will be well received because it’s simply changing the timeline — the requirements for cultural competency trainings are already in place.

There are many student groups on campus that can lead cultural competency trainings. Yasmin Ibarra, a student with the Oregon Student Association, led the last cultural competency training for ASUO staff members back in the fall.

“As a staff member, we receive training through the organization on cultural competency training to be culturally competent to work with the students on campus. In turn, we are able to give that information and trainings to students,” Ibarra said.

According to Ibarra, the trainings are largely dependent on what student leaders and groups want to know more about. The ASUO’s fall cultural competency training was focused on race and ethnic identities, words about policies and issues and systems of oppression and privilege.

“Cultural competency is a range of things, it’s not just a box that we check off,” Ibarra said. “The goals for this training was to have a common vocabulary when implementing cultural competency, being able to provide tools to assess the group and then being able to apply what you learn in those spaces.”

Students double fisting Dutch Bros with blank expressions at 8 a.m. scout the desks nearest to the coveted outlets. Finals week brought many students to the Knight Library at all hours of the day and night, armed with laptops, chargers, caffeine and the occasional pizza.

During finals week, the typical library schedule goes from being open 24 hours a day five days a week with limited weekend hours to 24 hours a day seven days a week. It’s a jungle for the library staff that witnesses it all.

Evelyn Sagastume worked at the library during finals, getting first hand experience dealing with frazzled students. Sagastume works at the front desk and is primarily concerned with shelving and safety staffing.

“Safety staffing is where I walk around the library and make sure people don’t leave their stuff unattended,” Sagastume said. For the most part food is what’s left behind.

“People get pizza delivered here,” Sagastume said. “During finals week people just live here for a few days.”

The demand for books is also greater during finals week.

“People borrow books from different libraries and since it’s finals week and basically everybody is done with their final projects it’s just a massive amount of books being turned in,” Sagastume said. “The backroom where we make the shelves to put back on different floors, that’s really filled up with carts of books to put back. So that’s what we usually do for the first three weeks of the term, recovering.

The Knight Library was constructed in 1937. Since then the library has been renovated, expanded and updated. The Knight library is home to more than just books. There are exhibits, classrooms, a video production studio and dozens of other departments and services including a cafe to help sustain library squatters.

“Several people have ordered four to six shots of espresso.” Mari Boning said, a Daily Grind barista during finals week.

According to employees, the increase of both clientele and caffeine intake is evident at the end of the term.

“It’s usually busier dead week, Sunday and Monday of finals week,” Kelsey Consolo said, a Daily Grind barrista. “We sell a lot more Red Bulls and black coffees.”

The 77 year old building also has a significant virtual presence. Today you can like the Knight Library on its Facebook page, take a virtual tour of the library online and even follow @uoregonlibraries on Instagram, For the craziest stories, check the UO confessions page, which is filled with instances of alleged debauchery between bookshelves.