A nomination for ASUO Senate president turned into a discussion about rules in the Green Tape Notebook at Wednesday’s Senate meeting. However, due to a rules violation, the decision about who will be Senate president is invalidated.
Last week, Sen. Lamar Wise was removed from his position of Senate president due to a grievance filed by Sen. Lindy Mabuya. The grievance stated that Wise failed to hold a cultural competency training and that that was one of his responsibilities as Senate president. Constitution Court decided to remove Wise from his position for not fulfilling his duties.

ASUO Sen. Harlan Mechling and Wise were nominated for the position last week but Wise declined the nominations. When the topic was brought up Wednesday night, Wise was still reticent but decided to accept after speaking with ASUO Sen. Ben Bowman.
“Ben encouraged me and said I had support on the body,” Wise said. “He also said he was going to fight for me.”
Tensions were high as people began to voice their opinions, and both Mechling and Wise were asked to leave the room in order to speak openly. ASUO Sen. Kaitlyn Lange started the conversation.
“I think Harlan would be great, he knows how to run the meetings in general,” she said. “As far as Sen. Wise, I think he should have been held accountable for not holding a cultural competency, but I don’t think he should have been removed.”
ASUO Sen. Ben Bowman agreed with Lange, saying Wise sent an email asking senators when they were free for a training and no one replied.
“Not only that, but he made great strides to make ASUO more accessible,” he said.

Mabuya spoke to the fact that this was something that was already decided on and Senate should respect the decision made by Con Court.
“No one disagrees that Lamar was a good Senate president, but we need people to hold us accountable for our actions,” Mabuya said. “We have to hold ourselves most accountable and set an example for those who come after us.”
Other senators explained that this discussion reveals a need for every senator to work harder.
“We should be there backing each other and doing the best we can for the student body,” Sen. Emma Newman said. “Let’s make this a really good run till the end, let’s end on a good note.”
At the end of the discussion, the body decided to give the position to Wise.
“I was extremely humbled and grateful to be handed back the position of Senate president,” Wise said. “I’m glad to know that Senate recognized the hard work I’ve done.”
A large part of the decision came down to whether or not Senate should honor the Con Court decision. Jared Glass, a member of Con Court, addressed the body last week about the ambiguity of the nonfulfillment rule. The senators took this conversation into account while making their decision.

In a press release sent after the meeting, Senate explained their decision.
“While we respect the the ruling of the Constitutional Court, we evaluated the situation before us based based on the qualifications of the candidates,” the press release said.
Even though a decision was reached, Sen. Ben Rudin realized it was invalidated due to a violation of Senate Rules.
The GTN states, “Candidates for each officer position shall provide a candidate’s statement to each Student Senator at least 48 hours prior to the election.”
According to Rudin, neither Harlan nor Wise sent these statements and therefore the vote cannot count.