LSU’s Student Government president vetoed a resolution condemning Attorney General Jeff Landry for missing a gubernatorial election forum held on campus Sept. 13.
Anna Cate Strong, the SG president, said in a letter to the speaker of the Student Senate that “I must veto SGR 3 due to its nature as political commentary.”
Landry was the only major candidate for governor not in attendance at the forum. He was in Bossier that night for an event with Donald Trump Jr., campaign spokesperson Kate Kelly said in a statement to the Reveille.
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The resolution, passed overwhelmingly at a Student Senate meeting Wednesday, said his absence was “a detriment to the electorate.”
“Attorney General Landry’s conscious decision to participate in a hyper-partisan rally instead of an organized debate with his actual opponents reveals a calculus that disregards the full-fledged, good-faith argument of policies most concerning to the Louisiana State University community,” the resolution said.
Strong said she felt SG shouldn’t take a stance on the matter.
“The biggest thing is that SG is inherently a apartisan organization,” she said in an interview with the Reveille, “and through condemning a political official, it takes a stance, which written or unwritten, Student Government has not done before” to her knowledge.
The Reveille could not immediately confirm whether similar SG votes had been taken in the past. Strong said she believes SG shouldn’t start taking such positions with this race for governor.
“SGR 3 is inherently a political statement, as it comments on his absence to a political forum and employs definitions of the United States political structure,” Strong wrote in her letter. “While as individuals, we may be frustrated with the actions or inactions of those who seek office in our state, we cannot speak as individuals when representing the entirety of LSU.”
Senators passed the resolution with 43 votes in favor, three against and six abstentions. It also had the support of the United Campus Workers of Louisiana, the university labor union.
Graduate student senators Alicia Cerquone, the author of the resolution, and Cullen Hodges, the co-author, pushed back on the veto in a joint statement to the Reveille.
“The student body president of LSU has vetoed our SGR because it is ‘inherently political,’” they said. “Being apolitical is a privilege and in itself political. The Student Government doesn’t have the privilege to stay out of the governor’s race.
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“There’s too much on the line for the students we represent. We fundamentally disagree with President Strong on the role of the Student Government, because we were elected to represent the best interest of the student body in all matters related to the LSU experience.”
The senators also reminded the Senate that they will have a chance to override the veto in its next meeting on Wednesday. The meetings, held at 6:30 p.m. in the Capital Chambers of the Student Union, are open to the public.
“We will not concede to anti-democratic behaviors for the sake of maintaining the status quo by means of a quote unquote ‘apolitical posture,’” they said.
Read Strong’s veto letter and the resolution here.
News editor Cross Harris contributed reporting to this article.
This article has been corrected to amend an error in the final quote.
LSU Student Government Innovate presidential candidate Anna Cate Strong awaits her question Monday, March 27, 2023, in the Holiday Forum during the SG debate in the Journalism Building on LSU’s campus in Baton Rouge, La.
