It’s sometimes hard for a new senator to predict where he or she will find allies around the table, but slate affiliations from the most recent election might be a good place to start.
Of the 12 new senators elected this spring, four came from the progressive True Blue Student Coalition slate. They will join two returning senators who led the campaign as executive candidates during the election, Nick Schultz and Lidiana Soto.
“I would have to say I’m one of the more progressive voices on the Senate,” Department Finance Committee Senator Jeremy Blanchard said. “It’s hard to say – we’re still sort of figuring out where people stand.”
He can likely count on returning independent Sandy Weintraub, who represents graduate students, to be a fellow progressive. Though Weintraub was elected as an independent, he has been an outspoken supporter of student groups’ funding requests.
Education Sen. Amanda Hilts, another returning senator who ran as an independent, is often quiet at meetings but usually votes in favor of funding requests.
Two new senators elected on the fiscally conservative Oregon Action Team slate – journalism’s Lindsay Reichardt and business’ Ryan Lassi – will join returning OAT members Demic Tipitino and Senate President Alex McCafferty.
It is the largest bloc of new senators that may be the toughest to predict. Six new senators were elected with the Students First campaign, a self-identified ideologically neutral slate led by former Sen. Carina Miller and returning Sen. Nick Gower. At the May 27 Senate meeting, new Students First Sens. Lyzi Diamond, Tyler Griffin and Benjamin Dodds cast votes against a funding request from a sorority that is not recognized by the Panhellenic Council. They were joined by established conservatives Gower and Tipitino.
However, new Students First Sens. Jessica Jones and Kristine Jensen supported the request.
“It’s the first meeting, and most of the new people coming in haven’t established what they feel their obligations are as senators,” Gower said. “As the year goes on and as we go through more meetings, people are going to solidify their values and positions on the issues that we have in the ASUO, whether it be procedural issues or spending philosophies.”
Jessica Jones
Class standing: Sophomore
Major: Undeclared
Bio: Jones said in an e-mail to the ASUO Elections Board that she was originally chosen to run for Seat 11 with Oregon Action Team, but that she dropped off the slate because she disagreed with its campaign tactics. She has a background in Greek Life, having served on the Panhellenic Council.
Lyzi Diamond
Class standing: Junior
Major: Planning, Public Policy and Management and Geography
Bio: Diamond’s double-major focuses on environmental geography and management, which she hopes to use toward a career conducting environmental impact assessments for a government agency. At her first Senate meeting, she voted against a surplus request to send members of Alpha Kappa Alpha to a national conference. She said she was once in a similar organization that maintained itself without ASUO funding.
Paige Libadisos
Class standing: Junior
Major: Psychology
Bio: Libadisos was elected on the progressive True Blue slate. She was an administrative assistant for the EMU Board during winter term and is a former president of the campus chapter of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars. She said she would like to see the Senate move to a larger, more welcoming space than the EMU Board Room.
Tyler Griffin
Class standing: Freshman
Major: Romance Languages
Bio: Griffin said he speaks fluent French and is the son of an American father and a Luxembourgish mother. He said he hopes to enter the legal field after he graduates. He voted against Alpha Kappa Alpha’s funding request last week because he believed the group would not become financially solvent, he said.
Benjamin Dodds
Class standing: Junior
Major: Political Science
Bio: Dodds said he became interested in the ASUO while representing a funding request for the Forensics Debate and Speech team at a Senate meeting with interim ASUO Finance Coordinator Matt Rose. “I just told him point-blank, ‘You need to get me into one of those chairs,’” Dodds said. He said he voted with fellow debate team members Sens. Tyler Griffin and Nick Gower at his first meeting in part because they approach arguments the same way he does.
Jeremy Blanchard
Class standing: Junior
Major: Environmental Studies
Bio: Blanchard designed the True Blue Student Coalition’s Web site, T-shirts and most of its pamphlets and posters. He said he considers himself a progressive voice on the Senate but is still figuring out what that means he will support or propose for student groups. He would like to see a revamped ASUO Web site and hopes to help the ASUO Executive staff member tasked with building one, though no one has been hired for the position described as Web Wizard.
Max Barkley
Class standing: Freshman
Major: Undeclared
Bio: Barkley says his career goal is either to write or to open a restaurant and “just make a hell of a lot of money out of private enterprise.” He has a background in philanthropy from working with Jewish charities in Scottsdale, Ariz. He said the ASUO can help him build character. “All the veterans just have really, really good, vibrant personalities,” he said.
Ryan Lassi
Class standing: Sophomore
Major: Pre-Business Administration
Bio: Lassi ran on the Oregon Action Team slate and was one of only two new OAT candidates to make it to the Senate. Lassi is a member of the snowboarding team and has worked for Red Bull. He is inexperienced in the ASUO and has spoken little at meetings.
Kristine Jensen
Class standing: Junior
Major: Political Science and Spanish
Bio: Jensen ran for Senate on the Students First slate and won, despite opposition from EMU Board member Gloria Kim and ASUO Legislative Affairs Coordinator Robert Greene, both highly experienced in the ASUO. She said at the May 27 meeting that she intends to sit on the summer Senate to gain experience.
Zachary Stark-MacMillan
Class standing: Junior
Major: Computer Science
Bio: Stark-MacMillan made a positive impression on Senate President Alex McCafferty, known for stumbling over difficult names, when he said he wouldn’t mind being called simply “Stark.” Like many science representatives, he is enthusiastic about the environment, but he also has an interest in technology that befits a computer science major – he is an assiduous user of Twitter.
Christina Ergas
Class standing: Graduate Student
Major: Sociology
Bio: Ergas is a graduate teaching fellow who currently assists in teaching a sociology class. She is also a shop steward in the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation, the GTFs’ union. She was the only senator absent from the new Senate’s first meeting, because she said until Tuesday, she did not yet know her term had already begun.
Lindsay Reichardt
Class standing: Junior
Major: Journalism: Advertising and Public Relations
Bio: Reichardt was Sam Dotters-Katz’s Outreach Coordinator and the only member of the Oregon Action Team slate to win a Senate seat in the general election. She voiced strong fiscally conservative values during the campaign, but voted last week in favor of several allocations that other fiscal conservatives voted against.
[email protected]