On Tuesday, February 23rd, the SBA will be holding elections for next year's President, Vice President, and Senate.  Candidates must submit the necessary information to register with SBA Director of Elections Bill McGonigle via e-mail by Friday, February 12th, and the campaigning begins the following day.

The campaign season will be ten days long, and if last year is any indication, should be exciting.  Each candidate will be invited to participate in a "town hall" meeting on Wednesday, February 17th, where they can share their ideas for the SBA and GW Law with their fellow students. In addition, each candidate will be invited to share their platform and answers to certain voter questions in a special election issue of the Nota Bene.

Candidates are also free to share their ideas via individual forums, such as table days in the hard lounge, campaign posters, or independent websites.  In order to maintain fairness, the SBA will limit the amount of money any one candidate can spend on her campaign and forbid "aggressive electronic campaigning."  Aggressive electronic campaigning involves using e-mail, gchat statuses, facebook, etc. to gather support for an individual candidate.  Every candidate will be responsible for ensuring that they and their friends play by the rules. According to McGonigle, there will be repercussions if a violation is discovered as the SBA is working hard to maintain fairness and ensure that the elections do not turn into a "popularity contest."

McGonigle is also implementing two new policies this year. First, Presidential candidates will be encouraged to form and register official campaign staffs.  These staffs of up to six will be allowed unlimited emails amongst themselves, and can help the candidate to best prepare for and discuss the issues.  Second, Presidential candidates will be able to create private websites where they can engage in in-depth discussions of their goals and ideas.  The URL's for these sites can be printed on campaign posters or otherwise disseminated.

One of the goals of these policies is to ensure that students know the substantive policies of each of the candidates. Current SBA Vice President Liz Westbrook thinks "it's great that the campaigning has become more substantive; candidates are forced to take a position and actually want to make progress."  Still, she adds that sometimes things can get nasty, so she hopes that all debates will center on the issues and not devolve into personal attacks.

Every student is encouraged to run for the SBA Senate and there is no requirement of previous service. Westbrook notes that "SBA has been my favorite part of law school," and she hopes that more students will be excited to run for office and take over the reins.  Still, she asks that anybody who wishes to run do some research into their position to fully understand what they will be doing and the time commitment they will be making.

The desire for many candidates is enhanced by the fact the SBA Senate will be growing next year. While the election format will be the same as it has in year's past, students this year will be voting for five, rather than four, Senators for each class.  According to Westbrook, the Senate decided to pass new legislation expanding the Senate in order to ensure that each class had equal representation.  Westbrook pointed out that after the school added a fifth day section of first year students, there were 5 1L Day Senators, while only 4 Senators for the upper level classes.  Senator Randy Fielder wrote the new legislation to increase the Senate size, and it was passed by the Senate last Wednesday night.

All persons interested in running for office should attend a mandatory information session on Wednesday, February 10th.  There you will receive an information packet that goes into much greater depth on the issues discussed above and learn more about the election process. For those of you who do not wish to run, be ready to ask questions and engage the candidates in dialogue over the next several weeks. All students, including 3L's, can vote for next year's SBA leadership so be certain to make your vote count.