Senate grapples with absences, special fees error

Post-election debriefing is underway, and ASSU undergraduate senators have a bone to pick with Ben Jensen ’12, who was elected Saturday to the 12th Undergraduate Senate.

Senator Alex Katz ’12 authored a bill this week mandating the on campus presence of elected senators for the full duration of their term, excusing only short departures from campus — and barring altogether quarters spent abroad, in Washington or otherwise away from campus.

The legislation arrives in light of a report in The Daily on Monday that Jensen, despite having signed a declaration of intent last month confirming his intent to be on campus throughout his term, has accepted a spot in a Bing Overseas Studies Program in Berlin for the upcoming fall, just months after taking office.

“The name of the ASSU has been taken through the mud with regard to credibility and ethics,” said Senator Anton Zietsman ‘12, offering an amendment to the bill that would have it apply to the incoming Senate, not the 13th Senate a year from now. “I think it is very appropriate for this bill to apply to the 12th Undergraduate Senate because of this declaration of intent.”

Zietsman said his intent was not to “kick out” Jensen from office, but rather to press Jensen to decide between a quarter abroad and a quarter on campus as senator.

Katz, the chair of the Administration & Rules Committee, did not support the amendment. He did make explicit that he found Jensen’s signing of the declaration “unethical” given Jensen’s full knowledge that he might be off campus during part of his term.

“He purposely did not tell the student body,” Katz said. “In my opinion, undergraduates could not make an informed decision.”

Elections Commissioner Quinn Slack ’11 said in March that all candidates were required to sign a declaration to get onto the ballot. He said this week that Senator-elect Kamil Saeid ’13 and another candidate had not turned in paper declarations, but that Saeid e-mailed him one.

Slack said he allowed them on the ballot anyway because their intent was made clear when they started a candidate petition, and that none of the candidates who turned in declarations, including Jensen, struck out any provisions.

In the 11th Senate, two-term Senator Shelley Gao ’11 used Skype to tune into meetings from Stanford in Washington in the fall. Both Adam Creasman ’11 and Zachary Warma ’11 are off campus this quarter.

“Frankly, I think it is a little hypocritical,” Mohammed Ali ’10 said, adding that current senators who served terms off campus “can’t be glazed over.”

Dean Young ’11 deemed Skype a “nuisance.”

After leaving the meeting early, Senator-elect Jensen reappeared in the heat of challenges made to his legitimacy as incoming senator to field questions about his conduct during elections, particularly with regard to the declaration he signed.

Jensen said he had not fully committed to a decision to go to Berlin until three days after he signed the declaration. He said he should have read the clauses of the declaration more carefully before signing it.

While many newly elected senators agreed that Jensen’s behavior was regrettable, none indicated a desire to remove Jensen from his anticipated seat in the 12th Senate.

Senate Chair Varun Sivaram ’11 said he did not support the bill with Zietsman’s amendment, and suggested that applying the bill to a member of the recently elected Senate would be a “personal attack” on Jensen.

Deputy chair and incoming ASSU Vice President Kelsei Wharton ’12 questioned why such a bill had not been written earlier in the year — if not during Gao’s absence, then surely when the body was informed of Warma’s and Creasman’s plans to leave campus.

Jensen has said he would “do the best job that is possible” as senator, calling into Senate and committee meetings via Skype, even at odd hours.

The normal time for Senate meetings is 7 p.m. PST on Tuesdays, which would translate to a 4 a.m. Skype call from Berlin on Wednesday morning. It is unclear which committees Jensen would serve on, and when they would meet.

After a straw-poll, with Zietsman alone supporting his own amendment, Katz rejected the amendment. The bill will likely be voted on next week.

The Senate passed all funding bills and unanimously passed two modifications to the joint bylaws, legislating how and when the Graduate Student Council (GSC) and Senate inform one another about funding meetings and how the bodies will determine appropriate funding for joint events.

Special Fees Error?

The Senate discussed alleged miscalculations by last year’s Elections Commission, indicating that students have been overcharged $14 each toward their student activities fee.

ASSU Financial Manager Matt McLaughlin ‘08 announced that by its own error, ASSU has wrongly been collecting what totals $90,000 from students for six groups that failed to garner enough votes to gain special fees funding during last year’s election.

McLaughlin reported recommendations made by Student Financial Services to “do nothing,” especially given the difficulty of executing such a fix. McLaughlin outlined the challenges of redistributing dollars owed, suggesting that students abroad and students requesting refunds, to name a few, must be accounted for and excluded when returning dollars.

Alternately, the Senate could legislate to refund students through the buffer fund or account for the money by deducting it from the student fee toward next year.
McLaughlin also suggested that if the Senate decides to undertake returning the money to students, they may have to deal with paying Student Financial Services for extra hours to disentangle who is owed what.

As an alternative, Student Activities and Leadership Director Nanci Howe suggested offering students a $14 credit of sorts to sidestep potential legal and logistical issues.