Student Senate Report 10/11/2006
In Which The Student Senate Learns The Meaning Of The Phrase “Appearance of Impropriety”
The Student Senate met last night at the Living Learning Center, in an effort to “increase the visibility” of the Senate. Why they would try to court any increased visibility is frankly baffling, given that the meeting (as usual) drifted between being deathly boring, and laughably embarrassing. This venue change will not be permanent, and for the next meeting, our elected officials will scuttle back to the EMU boardroom, and to the obscurity they so richly deserve.
The meeting kicked off with term addresses from the newly elected senate officers, an interlude falling more under the “boring” category than the “embarrassing.” One point of considerable interest arose, when Senate President Sara Hamilton made mention in her speech of the fact that about $1 million in unspent student fees had rolled over from last year, a fact Hamilton called “bad” and suggested solving it by “giving back to students.” It was not entirely clear at the time whether this would come in the form of a cash rebate to students, or perhaps a “gift” of “bike racks… or something” as VP Rosenberg put it in his address. Given the fact that the incidental fee has increased $13/term since last year, yes Sara, $1 million in rollover is BAD. Please, please, please do not treat this money like it’s a windfall for you to spend on some “campus legacy gift” that will kinda-sorta-maybe benefit students but will really make you all look good… for gods sake, give the money back!
No Senate meeting is complete without a shake-your-head, I-must-be-dreaming, Whisky-Tango-Foxtrot moment. Luckily for me, the Emerald covered this one, and quite well too. Needless to say, when the question “have you told the Marching Band that you plan on completely defunding them?” received an answer “no we haven’t” from Senator Guzman, it was clear that we had crossed over into the embarrassment zone. “Why haven’t you talked to them about it?” asked Senator Kinsey, “because they’re going to read about it in the paper tomorrow.” Guzman’s reply was unequivocal, “That was definitely a discrepancy that we made.” Perhaps the most disturbing aspect to all this, is the fact that there are “other groups that (the executive) is looking at” for similar treatment. From the perspective of a fiscal conservative and a fee-funded organization, the problem is not so much the fact that the executive is trying to find other funding sources for certain programs, as the fact that this is being done with zero transparency. If there is a rationale for eliminating incidental fee funding to a program, surely that rationale could be shared (at the very least) with the program itself.
The final highlight of the meeting was the vote to confirm former seat 11 (undeclared) Senator Oscar Guerra to the vacant Senate seat 1 (PFC). Guerra spoke of his experience as budget director at MeChA, and his experience at seat 11. He said that although elected to the undeclared seat, he had since declared a major and could not in good conscience remain as a representative of undeclared students. Clearly Senator Guerra (and those who backed this move) have not taken too close a gander at the ‘ol Green Tape Notebook, which states “a member elected or appointed pursuant to Sec. 5.4 to an Academic Student Senate seat who is a pre-major (undeclared) student may adopt a major and continue to serve on the Student Senate until his or her term of office expires.” So then why did Senator Guerra switch seats? Are the dictates of his conscience more strict than the rules of the Green Tape notebook? Or was the move motivated the fact that the PFC seat holds considerably more clout than a lowly undeclared academic seat?
The senate did not let such scurrilous considerations cloud its deliberations, but perhaps it should have, considering the scrutiny which was brought to bear on the hiring process. The hiring committee was made up of Senator Hamilton, Senator Guzman, Senator Lleras, and Executive Outreach Coordinator Mike Fillipelli, a group with overlapping interests which did not escape the Senates attention. Two of the four are members of the Executive, three of the four are Axelrod slate members, and two of the four are members of MeChA. The fact that Guerra and the other two hiring committee recommendations that were brought to the senate for confirmation were all members, or former members of MeChA raised some concern. Senator McKenzie even went as far as to question whether the candidates were coming legitimately, questioning the viewpoint neutrality of the hiring committee. His concerns were echoed by other Senators, and were hardly alleviated by the dismissive responses from hiring committee members Lleras and Guzman. The justification for picking Guerra, was largely attributed to the need to “get the senate to full strength,” a goal that was clearly not accomplished by shuffling a Senator from one seat to another.
The Guerra hiring process debate is essentially moot, because of the fact that as President, Axelrod is within his rights to nominate anyone he wishes. Clearly there were problems with the process, such as Senator Guzman’s failure to show up to Former Senator Dallas Browns interview for the position. Mr. Brown made his own case for why he is at least as qualified as Senator Guerra, but no one mentioned the fact that 9 other students also applied for the position. Every student leader, from President Axelrod on down waxes eloquently about the need to involve more students in their government, yet last night the Senate fundamentally failed that noble aspiration by shuffling a Senator from a seat he could easily have held to a position of greater power, in an incredibly non-transparent process and at the expense of a greater diversity of student voices. Furthermore, the fact that fully half of the hiring committee (including the ASUO Vice President) has deep ties to the single student group (MeChA), and that EVERY ONE of the committees choices for these positions also has deep ties to MeChA provides (if nothing else) a deeply troubling appearance of impropriety. Even worse is the fact that Senator Guzman feels like she can simply disregard these concerns because they lack evidence. The reason political corruption, cronyism and nepotism is so rampant at every level of government, Ms. Guzman, is precisely because it is so easy to conceal. If you can not understand how blatantly it appears that you are packing the ASUO with members of YOUR group, to positions that will decide on the funding of that very group, you are indeed part of the problem.
Oscar Guerra was confirmed by a vote of 8 to 4 with one abstention.
