that's new may please the court my name is jim valvano represented the student group and students below this case involves important first amendment rights to students in student elections important due process rights when students are punished for violating student election codes and whether a university can violate these rights with impunity placed simply temporarily repealing the unconstitutional laws after the students have been found to have violated them and after suit for purposes of analysis i think we can lump our claims into two groups first is the provision that prohibits distribution and posting of slate's by student groups at the university of california at santa cruz and the subsequent finding by the election commission that the students and student group violated that provision have but in a hearing which the not afford them due process the second is the spending live at which is a was imposed upon candidates for student government which the students obeyed and later filed suit against now with respect to the slate provision and due process the student group here below published a slate posted it throughout the campus prior to the election and the student election indorsing three candidates they complained about that  filed with the elections commission and the election commission convened a secret meeting to consider that complaint and to consider whether or not the students violated that provision there was no notice to the students about the behind closed doors asked to participate in the hearing and was barred and subsequent email was received by the students and student groups that held that the flyer was illegal under the anti slate provision held that the candidates the three candidates mentioned in the slate were equally liable and responsible for the flyer and ordered that the flier be taken down or the students would be subject to reasonable units are you arguing that you're in line for damages here in connection with records of their conviction in the record is that in the records yes that is you you will see copies of the two e mails that were sent to the students well there's that's what they say i mean they say that they have found that the distribution of the school flyer was illegal they say that they spent a lot of different then a conviction under the code of conduct which generally records that i get that exist with the elections commission or the student government now the university dispensed by saying that there is no u s c as disciplinary records well we're not talking about  university disciplinary file we're talking about actions of the student government through their elections commission and that's and this was dismissed so you know before discovery except for that but we have in the and of course the flyers were taken down one here we want a declaration that the finding that they had violated the elections code was unconstitutional because of violated due process and were not that we've lost but why didn't you why didn't they repeal it when a district court judge that they did not even appeal have declared spending limits for the university of california college system to be code and are they going to have their records are just going to work in their record for the rest of their life when they apply for law school when they apply to the bar when they are after a supreme court appointment that this is going to lurk in their where in the universe are in the archives would this information now well there's these emails were sent to the students from the election commission the election commission is an agency of the student government this case was dismissed an official record terms of a student with all due respect your honor there's a lot of investigations go around the united states in which e mails are being discovered and are being used as eviden record record as a record this was no different than the latter this is no different than a letter sent snail mail this is identical and in fact is now being used much more frequently by lawyers and other people change the proposition that this kind of relief that you're asking for is prospecting hatter versus los angeles city high school district four fifty two federal second six seventy three night circuit nine hundred seventy happening is that they have been by the student government to have committed a violation of the election code that they do not know the effect that that is going to have on that on their future life but they are under a cloud there we had this possible cloud from what happened yesterday now we read that there is no policy now in effect that you are affecting your client now please the court i'm christopher patty on behalf of the pelleas the question before the court is whether or not the plaintiff's challenges to these repealed statutes are and provisions of the elections code are mo his best case the hatter case is a case in which personal disciplinary records which might be the basis of subsequent action were placed in the file of a student and the court in that case said that given the existence of those records in the student's file there is but the potential of ongoing injury to that student and for that reason we can look at it and a terminal whether or not those records ought to be removed the defendant in that case i believe i believe it was a local school district there were a number of right and it's similar to the case that we heard just a few minutes ago where there were disciplinary records in prison records the plaintiffs allege that such records exist in their complaint and they refer to the student disciplinary code which does allow as one of the potential measures of discipline to put the court below in or before this court indicate is that the student disciplinary system in those disciplinary records have absolutely nothing to do with the enforcement of the elections code the enforcement of the elections code and the election commission can only in force the election code with respect to the to the to the pending election to say there's some violation of the election being election code being committed now and that needs to be fixed in the context of the pending  election the evidence that the plaintiff is talking about here aren't aren't disciplinary records as those that term is used in hatton all the other cases that they cite that you know with disciplinary records it's simply evidence of a past event evidence that there was a finding in the that might surface under those circumstances but the fact of the matter is there is no disciplinary record at the university what you're talking about is evidence of the historical events that happened in the past that could surface through the records of the student i mean there may be an e mail somewhere actually we know there's an e mail somewhere some the record here but the fact of the matter is that the situation is not going to change with respect to evidence of historical events by any order that  plaintiffs still subject to prosecution under the repealed statute that's the jacobus case that was brought to the court's attention after a briefing closed and of course here there is no possibility of prosecution for past violations because it's not a criminal rejection of move just on the grounds that there's been there was a repeal in all of those cases there were circumstances where the district court had already actually decided the merits of the case the case was on appeal and then there in this case is that now it's not nearly that late and that's and that's an important factor as the court in the jacobus case indicated the supreme court in the friend's case said one of the issues here is is a practical one does the repeal come so late in the game that we've already spent all this time and effort deciding the merits of the case and therefore it doesn't really save us any time to finish off the appeal or make the final decision feel  after it came after the lawsuit but before the district court opposing counsel patience arguing that kerry well the reason that that doesn't carry the day as is the this court said in the native here we have not only a committee in writing by the legislative body which is the student council which enact these provisions that says we're not going to act that again but you also have the dean of students the new law that's what those declarations say i don't think that's going to happen it hasn't happened yet we don't foresee that happening but you know there were cases there were cases proceeding after the supreme court on on the such a way to allow it so there's a recognized recognition and explicit recognition of the current case law of buckley in the welker case and the statement that as long as that law remains in effect we're not going to reenact these regulation sorry about that i didn't mean to speaking when you were down sorry about that the students that i represent take the university rule seriously and they take their reputations seriously when they are found to have violated a university rule that they're concerned about their reputation and we are not talking about this peculiar use of the word disciplinary that the university is relying upon but a question have you been found to violated any university rules the students would be required to say yes they violated the elections code now if this case is determined not to be moved so that you can go to the merits we get a marriage determination don't wait that that finding a violation of the election code was university does retain the power and has conferred that power continues to confer that power on the student government to elect spending limits look at our nine this is the university of santa cruz policies and procedures governing capital actions and it says under subsection six one it's said that student union assembly has the power to adopt quote campaign spending limits and the quote in the member in the more memorandum of understanding found that we are to eighty ninth the student assembly states quote believes strongly that campaign spending limits are important to