The final debate of the 2019 Student Government Association (SGA) election cycle was primarily marked by each slate attempting to defend the viability of some of their platform points.
The All-Slate Debate between Empower and Elevate was held 6 p.m., Monday at the L.A. Pittenger Student Center ballroom — one week before Ball State students cast their votes for the runoff elections.
Both slates were questioned regarding their platform points by both the moderator and the opposing slate. One argument that stood out was Empower’s defense of their two platform points — providing childcare grants and laundry grants to students — points The Daily News said were not feasible due to university and SGA finance policies.
Cameron DeBlasio, vice presidential candidate of Elevate, questioned what Empower’s backup plan would be when they realize they cannot move forward with providing grants to students.
“You’re platform has championed on the idea that just because they said we couldn’t do it doesn’t mean we can’t do it,” said Julian Simmerman, presidential candidate of Empower. “University policies are things that can be worked with. It’s not like just because there has been a policy made that can’t be changed.”
Simmerman said Empower was willing to work with university administration or third parties to get their platform points completed.
“I understand what you’re saying when it comes to our platform points — that we try to do the things people say we can’t do,” said Aiden Medellin, presidential candidate of Elevate. “At the same time we need to have feasible, responsible platform points.”
Medellin said Empower having platform points that go against university policy is “breaking the rules.”
“If we have to go to the university and fight to get that change we will fight to get that change,” Simmerman said. “Because at the end of the day these platform points are things that we intend to get done and we think are necessary for students. Right now, we’re not taking no for an answer.”
When Simmerman questioned Elevate’s 24/7 convenience store proposal, which Medellin said was already being discussed about by the university with the Student Center as a potential location, Medellin said it was SGA’s responsibility to voice students’ opinions regarding what they want in the store.
Joel Johnson, vice presidential candidate of Empower, questioned how Elevate planned to fund their Black Friday bookstore event platform point.
Medellin said due to the discounted prices offered during the event that would take place the week before Thanksgiving, bookstores like TIS would see an increase customers coming in, hence maintaining its revenues.
“In case that hasn’t happened, we’ve allocated $300,” Medellin said. “There will be extra allocated money that we could use to sustain TIS in case they did not reach the revenue goal in regard to the deal we make with them.”
Both slate’s campaign violations were brought up during the debate. They were asked how they could ensure the student body that they will not make similar mistakes in the future.
DeBlasio said Elevate understood their violation and cooperated with the elections board during the process.
“I think the most important thing to consider here is context,” Deblasio said. “So we did commit a copyright violation, but in the context of what that means for us as leaders, I don’t think that that speaks to our ability to lead.”
Simmerman said that the two violations they faced so far — early campaigning and campaigning in the library — were technical.
In the official statement from the elections board hearing, Empower was fined for three violations: campaigning in the library, early campaigning on social media and not registering a campaign volunteer.
“I can admit that I committed that violation campaigning in the library,” Simmerman said. “I do apologize for the fact that I did break the rule on that, and we’ll make sure to not break that rule again.”
Both slates also had to answer how they plan on addressing the needs of the minority community.
Simmerman said the slate has reached out to Spectrum, a student organization on campus focused on serving the LGBTQ student community, but they have not gotten a response.
“We want to learn more about what [minorities] need before we try to make those changes,” Simmerman said. “We think it would be unfair if we made platform points to try to cater to these minority groups if we didn’t actually hear from them first.”
Medellin said it’s Elevate’s job to reach out to the students to and lead the changes that need to be made for the needs of minority groups.
“I’ll admit that one point for diversity is not enough,” Medellin said. “That doesn’t mean that we can’t do all that we can for minorities on this campus, work for them and achieve the goals that they want.”
Contact Charles Melton with comments at cwmelton@bsu.edu or on Twitter @Cmelton144. Contact Rohith Rao with comments at rprao@bsu.edu or on Twitter @RaoReports.
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