Student Union campaign finance rules suffer from the same problem as national campaign finance rules: sources of political activity that are external to SU and aren’t sponsored by any candidate running for office.
Consider the following scenario: Joe decides to run for re-election as an SU senator. Bob decides to run against Joe. So far, so good: Joe and Bob can each spend equal amounts of money in their election efforts, $50 to be exact. They are required to report itemized expense reports to the Election Commissioner. If they spend more than $50, they are fined twice the excess over $50; if they spend more than $60, they are disqualified from the election.
Low spending limits are a good idea, since they mitigate the influence that money can have in elections. But there’s a way around them: a political action committee. Say Joe made five enemies in his tenure, and they all decided to form a “Kick Joe out of Senate” PAC. They each donated $1,000 to this group, which launched a massive and brutal attack campaign against Joe, causing him to lose.
The national analogy are so-called 527 groups, like the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, which are technically not affiliated with any candidate but can play significant roles in partisan politics. Contributions to and expenditures of 527 aren’t limited, unlike contributions to and expenditures of candidates.
This spending isn’t coming from Bob, so it’s not covered by campaign expenditure rules. Spencer Young, the election commissioner, said that if PACs are affiliated with SU candidates, even unofficially, he would hold that the spirit of the law would include the PACs spending as part of the candidates.
However, he agreed that if the PAC wasn’t related in any way to Bob, and operated despite Bob’s protests, there was little he could do about it. At best, SU could rip down flyers and posters from the PAC that violated the University’s posting policy. But flyers from a PAC don’t necessarily violate the policy at all.
This problem hasn’t come up yet, but the fundamental problem is the same as it is nationally: how do we balance the freedom of speech against the need to have elections that aren’t won by the biggest checkbook? Young, ultimately, was not in favor of restricting the freedom of speech of a PAC that really disliked Joe.
Neither are we, but the problem should be addressed before a PAC meddles with SU elections. While the solution is anything but obvious, a modest first step could be rules requiring PACs to register as such with SU and disclose an itemized list of their revenues and expenditures to the Election Commissioner. At least then everyone would know what kind of money was being thrown around for political ends.