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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Stuef speaks at last night’s forum

Heckler Editor-in-Chief Jack Stuef (COL ‘10) answered questions and tried to explain his point of view on a recent controversial Heckler issue at a forum Tuesday night, while students debated the articles and expressed why they were offended by the satirical articles.

Copies of the Heckler’s article about Hoya staff members holding a Ku Klux Klan-like crossburning were passed out before the forum, and much of the conversation centered on that article.

“The KKK isn’t funny,” Stuef said. “The article is to take the situation to the extreme, to show what is maybe buried in this campus.”

Stuef said that he was sorry for offending anyone, but added that with satire, offending people “comes with the terrain.”

LaMarr Q. Billups, Georgetown’s Assistant Vice President for Business Policy Planning, argued that the Heckler should not have used the picture of a KKK crossburning for the article because its hurtful power.

“This is an image that is deeply rooted in our souls,” Billups said. “In my own lifetime, thousands of people were lynched. Cross were burned in people’s actual yards.”

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From the Heckler’s blog

Tonight, recent issues of the student satire magazine Georgetown Heckler will be the subject of a student forum planned by students who have found some of its content offensive. Jack Stuef (COL ‘10), the Heckler’s editor, told the Voice last night that he planned to attend, too.

“I haven’t really planned this out yet, but obviously I’ll try to explain who we are and where we’re coming from because I think there’s a lot of confusion as to who the Heckler is and what our point is,” he said.

“I stand behind everything I’ve ever printed and everything I’ve ever written at the Heckler and I’ll continue to do that at the meeting. And I’ll try to explain where I’m coming from and hopefully there will be some understanding.”

The forum will take place in White Gravenor 201A at 8:30 p.m.

Chair of the Working Group on Admissions Ryan Wilson, who is the incoming Chair of the Student Commission for Unity, said the latest Heckler warranted discussion because it had gone too far.

“I think the Heckler missed the mark,” Wilson said. “While the paper strives to give insightful and intelligent commentary on different campus articles, the articles they’ve written over the last couple of months haven’t really done that.”

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The end has come for @JackDeGioia, our humdrum president’s hilarious Twitter doppleganger.  Things began to look grim when the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that the University of Texas at Austin’s president’s pseudo-Twitter was shut down last Thursday. According to a tweet from the man behind @JackDeGioia, Georgetown Heckler Editor Jack Stuef, Twitter sent him an email notifying him of the account removal yesterday.

Luckily, Vox was able to get some screenshots of the account so at least the final tweets can be enjoyed in perpetuity:

More after the jump!

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