Former Sen. Elijah Miller alleged during the Aug. 27 Student Government meeting that President Brooklyn Boreing took an under-the-table campaign donation during the spring 2018 election.
During the public forum portion of Student Government’s first meeting of the academic year, former senator Elijah Miller said President Boreing received an undocumented $2,800 and 25 iPads from Turning Point USA, a national conservative organization founded by Charlie Kirk to educate students on conservatism, during her spring election campaign. Miller also alleged Boreing’s campaign team vandalized their own campaign signs during the election season.
“Are we supposed to look at her in the eyes and think that she is any different than Connor Clegg? Absolutely not,” Miller said.
Miller alleged the donations came through TPUSA’s subsidiary, the Campus Leadership Project, which aims to get conservative students into influential Student Government and Greek life positions across the nation. Boreing’s former chief of staff, Collin Pruett, currently works as a leadership representative for CPL, according to Pruett’s LinkedIn account. Miller said Turning Point USA has been involved with not only Boreing’s election but former presidents Andrew Homann and Connor Clegg’s elections as well. A previous Campus Victory Project brochure lists Homan under the field and office staff for the organization. Pages later, Texas State is listed as a university with a targeted student leadership race.
“Most (Student Government Associations) have been controlled by the left for decades,” states the brochure. “Institutionalizing campus messaging and earmarking hundreds of millions of dollars of student fees to intentionally push a coordinated radical progressive agenda which has dramatically increased since the year 2000.”
In the same brochure, Robert Meyer is listed next to Texas State. University officials confirmed no one by the name Robert Meyer has ever been a student at Texas State University.
Boreing had no response to Miller’s allegations.
“I’ll definitely come out and talk about (the allegations), but I want to formulate my thoughts first,” Boreing said.
During the spring 2018 election season, Boreing and Vice President Ruben Becerra Jr. were tried and found not guilty on charges of bribery after then-Student Government Presidential Candidate Preston Nieves and Vice Presidential Candidate Christian Sears filed a case with the Student Government Election Board. Nieves and Sears’ alleged Boreing’s then-Chief of Staff Collin Pruett bribed Sears with a position on Boreing’s cabinet if Sears dropped out of the race.
Nieves, now a senator-at-large, said he suspected corruption akin to Miller’s allegations, specifically citing the under-the-table campaign donation by TPUSA.
“I mean obviously these are allegations at this point still, but you know we had suspected pretty far back that she was corrupt and that there was talk about Turning Point USA money pretty early on and it’s something that I had talked about,” Nieves said. “Same thing with the vandalization of the signs. The fact that this is coming up, it really is something that I… If it’s true I’m really disappointed it’s actually true.”
According to the Financial Disclosure segment of Student Government’s Election Code, all donations must be reported.
“Each candidate must keep accurate and up-to-date records of all campaign income and expenditures and submit a report even if they have no income or expenses. Donations shall include any and all discounts not available to the student population at large. Documentation should include but is not limited to:
(a) Printed receipts proving income and expenditures.
(b) Market value for all items purchased or detonated.
(c) Any fines applied by the Election Board.”
Boreing and Becerra’s financial disclosure records do not reflect the donation of the iPads or the $2,800. Boreing’s records indicate $3,841.17 was donated, primarily by students, senators and family of Becerra and Boreing. If Boreing did receive an unreported campaign donation of $2,800, there would be a violation for not reporting the donation as well as crossing the $4,000 budget threshold.
Dean of Students Margarita Arellano, faculty advisor for Student Government, said the punishment for the alleged unreported donation is up to the students and could include impeachment. Arellano also said the university can only be consulted and cannot interfere directly.
“Student Government is a self-governing organization, so my suggestion is that the senators and Student address (the allegations),” Arellano said. “The students are the ones who need to enforce governing documents and ask those question. I cannot intervene or tell (the students) what to do. It’s Student Government that needs to do that, it’s not the university.”
Following the meeting, Miller created a Twitter thread summarizing his allegations:
According to Miller, he will release evidence supporting his claims to The University Star if Boreing does not admit to the accusations. The University Star will continue to update this story as more information comes along.
News reporter Jakob Rodriguez contributed to the investigations pertaining to this story. Former news reporter Kaiti Evans contributed Sen. Preston Nieves’ interview.