USG Supreme Court Chief Justice Taylor Rhodes announced at the court's Monday meeting it would not consider the elections code until the Senate submits its meeting minutes taken on Dec. 2, when the code was discussed.

"It would be wrong for this court to approve the code without researching your legislative intent," Rhodes told Town Sen. Janet Moccia after she addressed the court.

At the meeting, Moccia and Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Senate President Erin Ferris questioned the court's authority to demand meeting minutes before agreeing to consider the elections code, which provides a set of rules governing elections in the spring.

If the minutes taken at the Dec. 2 meeting were adopted at the following meeting, the information would be considered public.

Town Sen. Kristen Kofmehl, who also attended the meeting, said she believed the court was trying to delay approving the code.

"Their job is to determine if it's constitutional or not, not whether they like it," Kofmehl said.

In an e-mail message to Moccia, court clerk Julia Graham instructed the senator to submit a packet to the court including "all meeting minutes from the 34th Congress where the elections code was discussed in any way, shape or form."

A meeting would be scheduled to consider the elections code once the court received all of the necessary documents. Rhodes said he has requested meeting minutes in the past.

"Also, during this meeting, the Court will request the presence of the USG president, the head elections commissioner, as well as yourself to provide testimony as to specific clauses within the code, any changes to the code, and the rationale behind the aforementioned changes," Graham wrote in her e-mail message.

Rhodes said the Senate should be prepared to answer questions about what was discussed during the debate concerning the code.

He said he would need to determine the pros and cons of the changes before considering the legislation.

However, meeting minutes cannot be released to the public until the Senate approves them, which usually happens one to two weeks after the meeting date, Moccia said.

Also, the court requested the minutes from all Elections Code and Apportionment Act Committee meetings, during which some senators reviewed and
discussed changes to the elections code.

Minutes were not taken at these meetings, Moccia, the committee's chair, said.

"It was not mandated that I take minutes, so I didn't," Moccia said to the court.

Ferris said delaying consideration of the code could result in USG having to use the 2002 elections code for a third year.

Last year, the Senate rejected an elections code revised by the court. Although the code, which requires a unanimous vote, lacked the approval of only two senators, USG had to revert to the 2002 elections code to begin campaigning on time.

The code included a $500 spending cap and a one-and-a-half week campaign.

The proposed elections code includes a $700 spending cap and adds an extra week of campaigning, as well as eliminates public polling places in the HUB-Robeson Center.

Moccia said reusing the 2002 elections code would not benefit the students.

"There is not as much of a check to make sure campaigns are done fairly," she said. "[The new code] makes for a more fair campaign."