This past Sunday, the GUSA Senate amended its bylaws regarding the election of committee chairs, requiring that all chairs, not just the chair of the Finance and Appropriations Committee, be elected by the entire senate. Some dissenting senators worried that changing the process would allow the cliques in GUSA to form undemocratic voting blocs.

Other committees are just as important as FinApp

Before the change, only the Senate Speaker, Vice Speaker, Chair of the Finance and Appropriations committee, and the members of FinApp were elected by the entire body. Due to “SAFE reform and their responsibility over the GUSA budget,” the FinApp chair is voted on by the entire senate, explained Senator Ben Weiss (Col ‘15). “The reason Vice Speaker Nate Tisa (SFS ‘14) changed this bylaw was to make it so that all committees are of equal importance, especially now that SAFE reform is essentially over,” Weiss said. Besides creating more equality between the committees, Weiss hopes the change will encourage committee chairs to have clearly defined goals. “One of the main critiques of student life and CBO [Community Building and Outreach] is they don’t have clearly defined goals,” but with this process “chairs will have to have clear goals going into the year,” Weiss said.

Dan LaMagna doesn’t fit in with GUSA cliques

Senator Dan LaMagna (COL ‘13) raised concerns before Sunday’s vote. He describes the voting for Speaker, Vice Speaker, the Chair, and members of FinApp as a highly political process. “I do realize this is student politics and its what people are sort of in it for, but I don’t know if it’s necessarily a good thing,” LaMagna said. For him, there is no need to change the current system because it works well. “People should be electing the people who will be leading them on a weekly basis,” LaMagna explained, adding “I don’t know why I need to be voting for the chair of FinApp, [but] I can understand why we vote for the members of the committee because it does control all the money.” Senator LaMagna serves on the Student Life committee. At the meeting LaMagna and others raised concerns of power blocs forming in the senate, considering that approximately 15 senators are returning every year and would be able to, in effect, control who becomes committee chairs. “There are cliques in the Senate, and one tends to be more powerful than the other. You want to make things as democratic as possible, and I think the best way to do that is voting within committees,” LaMagna said.

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At yesterday’s lightly-attended meeting of the Georgetown University Student Association Senate, the senate made some plans for the upcoming inauguration next week and the transition after that. There were no big-ticket issues, so Vox has some miscellany for you.

A few weeks ago, the Finance and Appropriations Committee established the budget for the next financial year. According to Finapp member Bridget Power (COL ’12), there aren’t many surprises in the budget.

“For a number of groups, we gave a 20% increase, which was the funding increase,” she said. “We did have to cut from club sports by a substantial amount from what they got last year.”

For the GUSA Fund, the senate approved allocations for the College Dems to bring the founder of Reddit to campus (co-sponsored by the University and the Lecture Fund), for M.E.Ch.A. to buy a banner for their Caesar Chavez Day of Service and Learning blood drive, and for the step team to have a competition in Lohrfink Auditorium. Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12) noted that the GUSA fund was close to emptying their coffers, and Finapp would consider an additional allocation to them in the coming weeks.

Our favorite Daniel “DJ LaMagnz” LaMagna (COL ’13) made a triumphant return last night as the head of a new student life subcommittee in charge of academic affairs. LaMagna helped organize the “Striking the Balance” event last semester and wants to continue looking into Georgetown’s relationship with the Chinese government with this new subcommittee.

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Vox invited each ticket to respond to five questions about their campaigns to be the next leaders of the GUSA Executive. They will be posted without editing or comment. Below is the response of Daniel LaMagna and Markel Starks.

Why are you qualified to be the GUSA President and Vice President?

We have experience on both the least and most functional organizations at Georgetown. We’ll focus on achieving practical objectives that make a difference in the daily lives of students.

What are your top three goals that you hope to achieve as the GUSA Executives?

Working with the administration to begin developing a smartphone app using the Modo Labs platform, making sure the University overhauls the Facilities system by the beginning of the academic year, and improving transparency by monthly video updates that will keep students informed on what we are doing.

What do you believe GUSA’s role should be in interacting with the administration?

GUSA should advocate for students by cutting through the red tape, holding public meetings with members of the administration, and making sure the administration keeps its promises by formalizing them in writing.

How would you characterize President Meaney’s and Vice President Laverriere’s time in office? If elected what do you plan to do the same/differently?

Mike and Greg do well at guiding long-term reforms to fruition. While this is fine, we think GUSA should emphasize practical goals like overhauling facilities, increasing GUTS bus weekend hours, and keeping students informed through monthly video updates.

Do you believe that student groups are people? [inspired by Mitt Romney]

They are made up of people.

Vox loves GUSA elections. Full of semi-self-conscious pageantry and hilarious demonstrations of Hoyas’ varying skill levels with Final Cut Pro, the February presidential elections always offer a good laugh during the doldrums of winter. This year is no different.

GUSA senator Daniel LaMagna (COL ’13), or DJ LaMagnz as he is known in these parts, has launched a juggernaut of a campaign for the presidency. With men’s basketball player Markel Starks (COL ’14) as his running mate, LaMagna has already distinguished himself from other GUSA candidates by submitting the smallest budget proposal of any candidate (a mere 48 words long, including the 10-word title) and asking if candidates are allowed to visit the bathroom during the presidential debate Sunday night.

LaMagna launched his campaign a few days after his competitors in order to avoid being lost in the noise, but if his campaign is anything like this Youtube video and his debate performance, he won’t have any problem standing out from the crowd. We won’t spoil it for you, but we’ll say that LaMagna’s campaign manager Ziad Jawadi (COL ’15) is clearly a graduate of the Mark Block school of videography.

Yesterday’s meeting of the Georgetown University Student Association Senate closed a lot of loose ends from last week’s meeting, including a look into removing the university’s ban on student businesses, membership in the student group union, and that danged textbook resolution.

How to succeed in business without violating university rules

The senate unanimously passed a resolution to look into overturning the university’s ban on student businesses that has been on the books for a while. Basically, the bill allows the student life committee to research the impetus for the ban and to lobby the administration for its removal.

The bill came out of a conversation with the Buyback Brothers, the used textbook resellers who were evicted from Red Square by DPS and the administration, according to Vice Speaker Nate Tisa (SFS ’14). Tisa also wants the university to replace the ban with more common-sense procedures like a ban on fronting.

Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12) also brought up that the rule seems to be selectively enforced. The Buyback Brothers were evicted from campus when they compete with the bookstore, while other businesses, like H2Bro, can operate undisturbed.

Solidarity of a different sort

The senate also passed a bill designating the GUSA president to represent the Student Association in front of the Student Group Union. For a brief overview, the SGU is a campus organizaiton composed of and meant to represent student groups on campus. The union has a general body comprised of representatives from the constituent clubs, and they elect an eleven-member executive committee to facilitate coordination among the groups . This bill officially delegated the role of SGU liaison to the GUSA president.

Although the executive would ostensibly be speaking for all of GUSA in front of the SGU, the senate would have the power to opt out of any SGU initiatives, thus making the senate’s relationship with SGU only as close at the senate wants.

But Daniel LaMagna (COL ’13) thought the bill didn’t go far enough. According to him, the GUSA president should have a guaranteed spot on the SGU executive committee.

“It seems it would be odd that the president of the student body would be a rank-and-file member of the SGU,” LaMagna said.

To which the bill’s sponsor and SGU Steering Committee Member Eitan Paul (SFS ’12) responded, “We don’t want [the SGU] to be led by the typical voices that are always invovled in this system… [a guaranteed spot on the executive committee] would give a disproportionate voice to student government.”

However, Paul added, “Someone associated with GUSA could conceivably run for executive.”

The act was authorized under a clause in the GUSA by-laws that effectively allows GUSA to enter into treaties with other organizations.

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