USG rules Bill Pang '12 overspent on campaign

In a closed-door executive session on Tuesday night, the USG Senate upheld its original decision to declare Austin Hollimon ’12 freshman class treasurer, rejecting an appeal by Bill Pang ’12 to overturn his disqualification.

Though Pang received a majority of the votes in the runoff election, he was disqualified after an investigation revealed that he had exceeded campaign spending limits.

“The margin was close,” senior elections manager Braeden Kepner-Kraus ’10 said in an interview Wednesday. He declined to release the candidates’ specific vote tallies.

With the support of three voting USG members, including U-Council chair Maria Salciccioli ’09 and U-Councilor Jacob Candelaria ’09, Pang presented his case to the executive committee. Salciccioli is also a blogger for The Daily Princetonian.

Pang exceeded the $30 campaign spending limit by $10, after purchasing an ad in the ‘Prince’ for $30 and printing 100 campaign posters at a rate of 10 cents per page. USG campaign rules assign five penalty points per dollar spent in excess of the limit, with a 50-point threshold at which the candidate is disqualified.

Pang decided to appeal his disqualification based on what he believed was the decision’s unfairness, as he was right on the border of disqualification.

“If I was five cents under, I would have been ok,” he said in an interview.

Kepner-Kraus presented the case for disqualifying Pang to the Senate. “Bill appealed on two grounds,” Kepner-Kraus told the ‘Prince,’ explaining that Pang appealed most strongly on the grounds that the 100 pages he listed on his expense report was an estimate rather than an exact report. “He later claimed that the exact number was slightly less,” Kepner-Kraus said.

Pang also questioned whether some of his unused posters should be counted as campaign material because no one saw them, Salciccioli said.

“I got a few defects and a few that I didn’t have time to post up,” Pang said, “and according to the rules [of the election], those shouldn’t be part of the cost. I said 100 sheets, but there were about 10 defects. I didn’t bother differentiating in the first place.”

Pang’s appeal was not without backing in the USG.

Salciccioli said that she chose to support Pang’s appeal because “it seemed like there was a lot of gray area in the things that Bill was questioning ... that were not his fault.”

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Candelaria explained that he felt “that some of the issues [Bill] was raising” were questions about “what was clearly spelled out and what was not clearly spelled out in our election code.” These concerns were valid, Candelaria said, adding that “some of his actions could be considered within [the guidelines].”

Candelaria and Kepner-Kraus both said that the only way for the USG to confirm how many campaign signs were actually posted would be to find and count each one on campus.

“Since it would be impossible to [do that at this point], we had to go with the amount of signs he put on his budget, and we had to go with what he told us, and he said 100,” Candelaria said.

“One of the main issues at hand was whether or not the USG charged different rates for colored printing and non-colored printing in regard to [campaign] signs,” Candelaria added. “Our election code doesn’t really distinguish between the two,” he said. “We need to be a little tighter in the information we provide for candidates.”

Pang also said that, prior to running his campaign ad in the ‘Prince,’ he was informed that it would cost less than $30, which he thought could also be used as a reason for overturning the disqualification, Salciccioli said.

“He’s responsible to check how much it would cost,” Kepner-Kraus said, but he noted that “I don’t think that he pushed the issue [of the ad] that hard at all” during the appeal.

After presenting his case, Pang said he waited for 20 minutes before the USG told him it would not overturn its decision.The USG rejected Pang’s appeal by a majority vote, Salciccioli said.

Ultimately, Candelaria said, he wanted to “make sure we gave him a fair hearing and talked these issues out at length.”

“I think that Bill is ok with what we explained to him and our justification,” Salciccioli said.

Candelaria, Salciccioli and USG president Josh Weinstein ’09 all said they hoped Pang would stay involved in student government.

“This was a really hard decision for all of us,” Weinstein explained. “One of the things we really hope for is that [Pang] will stay interested.”

Hollimon was not informed of Pang’s appeal. “I got the e-mail at 11:08 last Thursday that basically said ‘you have been elected treasurer of the Class of 2012,’ ” Hollimon said. “I haven’t heard anything [since then] ... my focus has mainly been on acting as treasurer,” he added.

Pang said that he will not be running for student government again in the near future, since “schoolwork is still a priority for me,” but he did not rule out the possibility.