Unbeknownst to most students, last Tuesday, a special election took place to fill a vacancy in the Georgetown University Student Association Senate. With 76 votes, Andrew Foley (MSB ‘10) beat out David Lee (NHS ‘10), who had 63 votes, for the off-campus seat that Senator Josh Mogil (SFS ‘11) vacated when he went abroad.

And, all things considered, Foley is lucky to have won. Lee’s strong showing appears to have been the result of a joke write-in campaign organized by his friends and roommates, including Nick Calta (COL ‘10). (At least Lee didn’t win—last year, students elected two joke candidates to the Senate.)

“I’m Nick and I live with David.  My roommates and I (not including David) have decided that he should win the GUSA Senate Special Election happening today,” Calta wrote in an e-mail. “We all agree that based on our experience of living with him for the past 8 months or so, he is a perfect candidate for this position.”

Calta then listed a few promises he expected Lee to make if elected, like “[eating] gummi bears at every meeting (assorted flavors)” and “[throwing] said gummi bears at people he disagrees with.” [Disclosure: David Lee is the former business manager for the Georgetown Voice.]

Senator Andrew Foley was also the beneficiary of a last-minute disqualification of his only other official opponent. The opponent? Recent Georgetown grad and former Georgetown Heckler editor Jack Stuef (COL ‘09), who successfully signed up to run in the election. Stuef campaigned undisturbed by election officials for two days despite having graduated in December, living 500-or-so miles away in Michigan, and Tweeting profusely about his campaign on a Twitter feed followed by several Senators.

Read Calta’s full letter and check out a chronicle of Stuef’s campaign after the jump!

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If we learned anything about the GUSA Senate this Monday night it’s that they have a USPS-like devotion to braving the elements.  As the rest of the school buckled down for our second-consecutive snow day, the Senate reaffirmed that neither snow nor gloom of night would interfere with its commitment to legislating.

And legislate it did, slogging through a two-hour discussion before passing the controversial Act to Modify the By-laws to Improve Student Activities Funding by a vote of 19 to four.  The bill will strip advisory boards of their votes on allocating the Student Activities Fee, giving control of the process to GUSA’s Finance and Appropriations Committee.

The meeting opened with a period of public comment on the bill.  The three student who spoke all expressed opposition to the changes.  Nick Calta (COL ‘10), Chair of the Advisory Board for Club Sports, cautioned that the bill would create “the potential for really wide fluctuations in funding”; a representative from the Center for Social Justice decried the adversarial tone of the debate and urged senators to think about “what kind of leadership this legislation is promoting”; and former GUSA Senator and current GUSA Presidential Candidate Matt Wagner (SFS ‘11) warned that it would be “a huge mistake” to pass the bill.

After a quick executive briefing—in which GUSA President Calen Angert (MSB ‘11), when asked by a Senator about his stance, said he “fully endorsed” the bill—the act’s co-sponsors, Senators Nick Troiano (COL ‘11, Village A: A-D) and Colton Malkerson (COL ‘13, Harbin 2-5), gave their spiel about bill, explaining what exactly it would change and why they believe it is necessary.

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GUSA debates rats and the perennial publicity problem

STUDENT ACTIVITIES FEES: The Senate waded further into the morass of club funding, passing a bill about the Student Activities Fee. Students currently pay a $100 Student Activities Fee, half of which goes into the student activities budget, and the other half of which goes into a student activities portion of the endowment.

Students cannot use the student activities portion of the endowment until the total sum reaches $10 million, and the interest accrued on the account is rolled over into the university endowment.

Many Senators weren’t too happy about that arrangement.

“They’ve been robbing us,” Josh Mogil (SFS ‘11—Off Campus) said.  “It’s completely unacceptable.”

GUSA wants the interest to be put into the student activity fee account, and they want to consider a way to recoup the interest that has already been rolled over into the University’s endowment. Some Senators voiced concern that it would be difficult to get the administration to implement such a policy, though.

RATS: Senator Arman Ismail (COL ‘11—Reynolds) has found his issue: Rats.  He wants GUSA to step in and address the rodent menace plaguing campus.

However, Mogil voiced concerns that such a project would harm “the spirit of the new GUSA.”

“I’d like to remind everyone that if we tackle a problem we can’t solve, it’s not going to help our image,” Mogil noted.  He said GUSA is not the right body to eradicate the rats, and expressed concern that “The Hoya will cover it in their front article: ‘GUSA tries to kill rats, complete failure.’ Everyone will be laughing at us, it will be embarrassing.”

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Go ahead and give your GUSA Senator one—or eleven—of these!

Three hours and forty-five minutes. That’s where the second meeting of the full GUSA Senate clocked in. But the 21 Senators got the most out of their time, electing 11 people to various internal positions, including Adam Talbot (COL ‘12) as the Senate’s new Speaker and Chris Pigott (COL ‘12) as Vice Speaker.

Talbot and Pigott were both vocal freshman Senators last year and seem to be good friends. They gave each other ringing endorsements when the other stepped outside to be elected to his position. (Both races were uncontested). The personal relationships don’t end there: newly elected Parliamentarian Sam Ungar (COL ‘12) is Talbot’s roommate.

There’s no funny business going on here, though. The Senate was aware of the love triangle that now dominates its upper offices. Ungar, Pigott, and Talbot were simply the best men for the job—with the possible exception of Nick Troiano (COL ‘11), who led the Senate’s Transition Team.

Troiano has said from the beginning that he would prefer not to be Speaker, though.  When nominated by a well-meaning Senator, he respectfully declined the nomination.

Troiano did, however, score the position of Chair of the Finances and Appropriations committee, which comes with the chance to sit in on Funding Board meetings—an excellent vantage point from which to continue his public war with SAC.

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