This week’s meeting of the Georgetown University Student Association Senate included a heated contest to fill a vacant seat on the Finance and Appropriations committee, and a denouncement of Eric Cusimano’s extracurricular involvements. Here’s the wrap:

Finance and Appropriations Committee Post Filled

In perhaps the most contentious part of the meeting, Senator Ben Bold (COL’13) was selected by the full Senate to fill a vacancy on the Finance and Appropriations Committee. During his time for remarks, Bold said he had closely followed the work of the Finance and Appropriations Committee and had fully supported the funding board reform. Bold ran against Senator Matthew Ginsberg (COL’11), who said that he was suited for the job because he had an interest in financial allocations and had served as a director for the Corp.

During the debate over the confirmation, some Senators appeared to argue that Senator Bold was competent and self-motivated, and therefore should be opposed. Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12) warned against a “leadership accretion” on the FinApp Committee, while FinApp Chair Nick Troiano (COL ’11) said, “Our committee has enough ambition and self-motivated people … We have to distribute this energy to all the committees.” Ultimately, however, Bold’s attributes were deemed more of a good thing than a bad thing, and he was approved by a 10-8 vote.

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Again!

Oh my Lord baby Jesus. What a meeting.

Some people walked in at 9:30 hoping this would be a short one, but not tonight. Things started out orderly enough, and with more members of the public in attendance than there have ever been this year. The important part, (not that you would know it, cause it was before all the yelling), was that the Constitution Commission was elected. Its brand new members are Andrew Mok (SFS ’09), Shane Giuliani (SFS ’09), and Justin Weiss (COL ’09).

Their job is to hear the complaints of all the GUSA Presidential candidates, and, I believe, to adjudicate based on all the evidence they hear. Their qualifications are a little less clear. It seems to me like finding unbiased people to serve on these commissions has translated into finding disinterested people. Andrew, when asked if he had any relation to anyone involved in the election, said, “I’m not even aware of who’s running at this point.” Wowza.

The only other thing that affects the future of the election is that Nick Troiano (COL ’11) said he hoped the Election Commission would come to a decision by tomorrow (Wednesday) about whether to press play on the vote that was suspended earlier today. No word on whether that’ll happen or not; Sophia Behnia (COL ’09) didn’t even go to the meeting, although the other two Commissioners, Frederick Moore (COL ’09) and Will Dreher (SFS ’09), attended. Not that they spoke, but maybe that was a good thing, considering how heated things got later on.

Would you like the highlights? Here are the highlights, including a near-fisticuffs with Jeff Lamb:

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