Candidate Xiaoyu Li

What are your plans for this position?

“My overall goal for this position is to play a more active role in ensuring the effectiveness of USG. The Chief Judicial Officer (CJO) is in the unique position of being externally elected by the student body yet not a voting member of General Assembly (GA), meaning that if elected, I would have the duty to represent the student body in a very different way than the rest of USG. Rather than working on initiatives, the CJO’s responsibility should be to act as a check on the USG, making sure that we are both following our bylaws and also doing what’s in the best interest of students to the best of our ability.”

What are your plans for enforcing the bylaws?

“I believe that education is the most effective way to enforce the bylaws. Often, bylaws are broken simply because they’re misunderstood, so I will ensure that every member of USG understands what their responsibilities are according to our documents. In addition, I plan to do a thorough review of all of our documents with the Judicial Board to make sure that they are still logical for the student body and GA that we have now. Bylaws should make sense if they are to be enforced, and they should also be dynamic and optimized for the people that they are serving.”

What bylaws, if any, do you think need changing?

“I believe that the vice presidential positions should have a stipulation of requiring candidates to be in USG for at least a semester prior to elections, similar to the President currently. From my experience as Vice President of Academic Affairs, it is very difficult, in a short amount of time, to truly understand the role that USG plays on campus and how to effectively lead an entire committee to carry out that role, not to mention doing that without spending any time within the organization first. In addition, as previously mentioned, I plan to utilize Judicial Board more fully by reviewing all of the documents and to sustain this by adding a requirement for the review to be done every few years.”