March 28-April 3, 2002

city beat

Politics 101

COLLEGE TRY: Richard and Baeri say officials played against them.

Old-School Tactics in Villanova Elections

by Jenn Carbin

College elections may be fertile ground for cookie baking and platforms that include late-night grease trucks and on-campus video stores, but that doesn’t mean more serious issues aren’t brought to bear, or that good old character attacks don’t take place. Take Raegen Richard and Eric Baeri, for example. Running this semester for president and vice president of Villanova University’s student government, they had a platform that not only included extending the period during which students drop courses, but improving student housing and getting the school to build a parking garage. Though taking on the administration’s election-campaign policies wasn’t part of their platform, they spent considerable time doing just that.

Richard and Baeri, who lost the election Tuesday, say they were treated more harshly than their opponents, Maureen Holland and Dan Sabo. They complain that they were continually threatened with penalties for inconsequential campaign violations while Holland and Sabo spent way over budget and were generally treated like favorite children.

Richard and Baeri complained to director of student development Tom Mogan that a conflict of interest involving election commissioner Mark DeCicco was resulting in their being slapped with penalties for minor campaign violations based on "unclear" rules. DeCicco belongs to Phi Sigma Kappa, the fraternity of opponent and vice presidential candidate Sabo. "A few students brought concerns to Mogan, and he admitted that conflict of interest there was plausible. Nothing was done about it, though," says Richard.

Recently, there's been a flurry of letters to the university-owned Villanovan on the subject of DeCicco's appointment, with DeCicco supporters pointing out that he was made one of two commissioners before the candidates were even in place. Mogan confirms this, and he says the "interest meeting" for those considering running for Student Government Association (SGA) offices brought out 37 people. He asks,"Should we have found out whether Mark knew any of the 37 people?" Mogan says that's likely, and that's one of the reasons DeCicco was chosen. "Mark is a leader, well-liked and really well-known for his involvement in the orientation program and Special Olympics," Mogan says.

Holland, the opposing candidate for president, says DeCicco was chosen to be one of the election commissioners for obvious reasons. "DeCicco is one of the most involved, popular people on campus. First of all, he knows a lot about what's going on [at Villanova]. Second, he can bring a lot of attention to the elections. Historically, we have low turnout. If it were up to me, he wouldn't be on the commission. He could be a big help to [our campaign] if he wasn't on it. But he does a lot for the election, and I think he has a record of being unbiased."

DeCicco could not be reached for comment.

Another complaint Richard and Baeri brought to the commissioners was that the opposing candidates were “obviously, seriously” over their $200 running budget, utilizing color posters, buttons, T-shirts, and cookies “in Saran Wrap with stickers on them,” yet it took until the last day of the election for a penalty -- no campaigning for five hours -- to be issued. It was the cookies that snagged them. Holland admits that she didn’t figure out the cost. “My mother made them,” she says. Every promotional tool gets figured in during a student election.

Mogan says Holland and Sabo were around $50 over budget; Raegen's team figures their opponents spent $642 total. "It's difficult to enforce these rules when in some situations you're taking the word of the candidates," Mogan insists. He says you can demand receipts, but at some point students are on an honor system. "It's the nature of the competition. We had a meeting with both sides. We looked at [Holland's] budget and assigned a fair-market value to everything. Raegen and Eric also admitted to doing a few things over budget."

Richard says, “The administration doesn’t like us,” and points to his team’s “original ideas” as the source of the trouble.

In a Q&A with campus paper The Villanova Times last week, Richard lamented the “no can do” attitude on the campus and pointed out that as “Villanova’s customers,” students have the right to demand housing improvements and be heard. He also took a stand against the popular idea among the student body that the SGA should control the activities budget, citing the potential for corruption.

Penalties, which cut into their campaign time, may have thwarted Richard and Baeri’s winning, though that’s doubtful. They lost by nearly a 2-to-1 margin, garnering 848 votes to Holland and Sabo’s 1,539.

Richard and Baeri have largely blamed unclear campaign rules for their infractions. They were cited Friday for cramming flyers into western campus door jambs; as a penalty they were prevented from campaigning between 6 p.m. Friday and 6 p.m. Saturday. When Richard protested that a past president had called such flyer activity "normal" for campus elections, he was told the penalty would not be removed.

Monday, the commissioners cited Richard and Baeri for a mass e-mailing sent by a supporter. Mass e-mails and data-banking is illegal in Villanova student elections, and one of the men behind the e-mail is a senator in the commerce and finance school, as is Baeri. If known supporters of candidates engage in actions that would be illegal for candidates to engage in, candidates can be penalized. Richard and Baeri were handed a penalty of no-campaigning between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Monday, the last night of the election.

Baeri phoned Mogan's office at 8:30 on Monday morning, he says, to complain that Holland and Sabo hung a poster that exceeded size limits. By early afternoon, the commissioners cited him and Richard for campaigning in the cafeteria; when the candidates pointed out the situation with Holland and Sabo's poster, the commission agreed to throw out both citations. "It was around 2 o'clock already," Baeri says. "They weren't going to cite them for the poster; the only reason it came up was because we were being cited."

According to Holland, however, Mogan told her around 10 a.m. that she and Sabo might be sanctioned later that day.

Holland says her opponents "got off scot-free" for one transgression. She received seven phone calls, she says, from supporters who told her Baeri and Richard were campaigning beyond 8 p.m., when they were scheduled to stop due to their penalty.

Overall, Mogan says, "I thought the election was pretty clean." He says he's not bothered by the charges of Richard and Baeri, that he knows "they weren't treated any differently than the other candidates" and, anyway, he likes how much they care. "I'd rather have students who are passionate and fired-up, who put themselves out there. I'll take them anyday."