In a disgusting display of petty partisan politics unbecoming of student representatives, the remnants of the Red Party railroaded Sen. Erica Richey at the April 7 Student Government Senate meeting.
Richey, the erstwhile SG Elections Supervisor, went up for appointment April 7 and proceeded to take on the form of a punching bag.
Richey stands accused of manipulating the election results by leaking the first day’s vote count and generally acting against the interests of the Reds.
Without proof of any wrongdoing, Senators jumped on allegations of dubious merit — dubious not because of the truth or fiction of the charges, which we just can’t know at this point, but because of their irrelevance.
All we know for certain is Richey said she leaked the first day’s vote tally to a former UNF student whom she called her mentor. There is no evidence she told anyone else, only hearsay.
More importantly, nowhere in SG Constitutional statutes is the elections supervisor bared from sharing the first day’s results with anyone. Richey could have posted them on Facebook or in the pages of the Spinnaker if she wished.
This makes us wonder if our esteemed SG senators have taken the time to actually read their guiding document.
To be clear, the Senate was under no obligation to appoint Richey. The appointment process is, more or less, completely within senators’ prerogative. No rhyme or reason is required for a nominee to be confirmed or rejected.
What is disturbing about the events which transpired in the Senate last week was the shameless character assassination used as the rationale for denying Richey’s appointment.
Despite a rocky start, Richey has proven to be an effective senator and student representative. She learned from the canceled fall elections debacle and executed a fair, transparent spring contest which brought the most students to the polls in UNF history.
The Spinnaker has not been shy about lambasting Richey in the past, and if evidence emerged showing a breach of statutory imperatives, we would be obliged to agree with her removal from office.
But no such evidence has been produced.
Leveling baseless accusations of malfeasance isn’t in the job description of an SG Senator. A senator’s duties, as far as we can gather, encompass paying nauseating lip service to “fiscal responsibility” while inexplicably throwing profligate sums of money at religious-centric concerts and Greek-centric events.
This wasn’t about principle. This was a hit job. Sour grapes from a fading political dynasty. Putting the icing on the cake was the perplexing actions of former Red Team student body presidential candidate Tom Blanchard in sending Richey a sardonic text message to pour salt in the wound.
We can only hope the Yellow Revolution continues through the fall elections and replaces the embittered Reds currently placing the need to settle scores above the need to serve the student body.
