Does money spent toward campaigning directly influence the chance a candidate has to win? This is the question that initiated a lengthy debate that took up the majority of Wednesday night’s student senate meeting.
During previous student government elections at the University of South Carolina, there have been no limits or caps written in the constitution that specifies how much executive office candidates can spend while campaigning. A recent bill, introduced by several senators, proposed an amendment to section 4-2-120 of the constitution that would place a limit on how much candidates are allowed to spend on campaigns.
The original bill proposed a spending limit of $1,500 per candidate. Following the first proposal, two amendments were made: first to raise the limit to $2,000 per candidate and then to decrease the cap to $1,000 per candidate. The student senate voted against both amendments and agreed to keep the limit at $1,500 per candidate.
Before the decision was made, members of senate went back and forth voicing various opinions on the issue. The room seemed to be divided. Some senators felt like it should be up to the candidates to determine how much money to spend during elections and that the constitution does not have the right to tell candidates what to do with their own money. Others felt that not having a cap, or even settling on what some considered a high cap, puts candidates of lower socioeconomic statuses at a disadvantage when running and prevents students who cannot spend money on campaigning from choosing to run in the elections at all.
Nick Santamaria, chairman of the Academics Committee and second-year political science student, feels that the cap on spending will level the playing field for people considering running in executive office elections.
“I [support the limit on campaigning spending] as a student that could never put forward $2,000, $3,000, any sort of amount of money like that into a campaign,” Santamaria said. “I know that there are probably countless other students at this university that can’t just put forward that kind of money. So, in my mind, decreasing that takes down a barrier to entry.”
Ross Lordo, president pro tempore of the senate and second-year exercise science student, was an author on the bill and a supporter of the $2,000 limit. He conveyed apprehension over the choice to set it at $1,500. After speaking with previous candidates who reported spending around $2,200 on campaigns, Lordo felt that the $2,000 limit would be a “happy medium.” He expressed concern over jumping down to well below what candidates have typically spent in the past and the implications it might have on the student body.
“I think that $2,000 seems like a very good number for right now,” Lordo said. “If somebody had $2,000 to spend, that’s only reaching about 8 percent of the student body to actually hand things out to. People don’t realize that if you just buy a banner on Greene Street it costs over $250, so I think it’s important to look at the numbers.”
When discussing the bill, a statement was pondered whether or not it would be beneficial for candidates to spend more money to reach more students, thus getting more students to care about student government. Student Body Vice President Lee Goble expressed his belief that education, not money, is the way to rally students to care.
“I think the way is to get more people to care, and you do that by educating the people on what student government can do,” Goble said. “Then you have more people who want to run for office, and then you have more people who vote ... It’s not about getting people to spend more money. I don't think that's ever the answer. I think that the answer is education first, getting people to care so that they will run and having more people run.”
The bill to cap campaign spending at $1,500 was passed and will now head to Student Body President Jonathan Kaufman’s desk, where he can either pass or veto the bill, a decision that can be overridden by a two-thirds vote from the senate.
The senate also passed two significant bills introduced by the multicultural affairs committee. The first was a resolution to stand in solidarity with the University of Missouri. The second was a resolution to support a more inclusive homecoming program.