New members of the Associated Students of Portland State University met last week to appoint directors and Student Fee Committee members, and to address continued issues regarding Judicial Review Board decisions during the elections.
After a delay in ASPSU election results, the newly elected members held Senate meetings with full agendas on June 9 and 12. The first meeting was called by two-fifths of the senators signing an agenda that denotes their need to have a meeting. This agenda included two resolutions.
The first of these, proposed by Senator Linda Hoppes, resolved to “overturn all infractions issued by the Judicial Review Board Elections Committee during the 2014 ASPSU elections.”
“I am presenting this resolution to overturn the Judicial and Constitution Review Board decision to dismiss Marcus Sis, Erica Fuller and Khalid Alballaa from the elections due to Marcus Sis being found not responsible for a student code of conduct violation by university conduct officers,” Hoppes said. “In addition, the Judicial Board process was extremely flawed, with lack of transparency, a lack of notice of all parties involved and the due process of Marcus Sis and Erica Fuller being violated.”
The second resolution, proposed by Senator Gregory Elkins, sought to form a committee consisting of five voting members of the Senate to review the J-Board’s infractions decisions. The resolution referred to problems in the 2014 election that affected the legitimacy of the J-Board’s decisions.
“It’s very clear in the constitution that checks and balances exist for a reason,” Elkins said. “If the J-Board oversteps its bounds or makes an error in judgment, the Senate is here to correct its mistakes.”
“There’s a lot of things I could go into as to why this is an appropriate action,” said SFC member Devon Backstrom. “The Judicial Board failed to provide a process for review and appealing the decisions being made.”
“Currently the only oversight that the Elections Board has is this Senate body,” Backstrom added.
In a public comments section that lasted over an hour long, students addressed the Senate regarding the proposed resolutions.
“When we were all running [in the] elections, we said that we believe in certain values and certain codes of ethics that are not necessarily things that we’re still following—at least from the outside looking in,” said former Community Rising vice presidential candidate Sam Matz.
“The fact that the very first Senate meeting is entirely addressed to solidification of power, as opposed to any of the issues that you all were running on, is disappointing to me,” Matz added.
“If this J-Board decision gets overturned, it will invalidate the entire existence of the J-Board,” said Student Action Coalition member Inna Levin. “Why are you trying to overturn this decision? What’s your goal here? Your responsibility is to the students of PSU.”
“I’m a little disappointed, because this proposal seems like it’s going in the wrong direction. It’s backtracking,” said PSU student Jacob Gran. “The student body is already so uninvolved in student politics.”
Gran added that he thought the proposal would affect voter turnout next year.
“Why would they want to be involved in a body that says that they represent them when they really don’t,” he said.
“I believe that [student government] can make a change,” said disqualified vice presidential candidate Erica Fuller. “I also believe that we cannot make a change and we cannot be the voice of the students if we are crumbling within.”
Fuller added that she didn’t think anyone should have been disqualified.
“There are no hard feelings, but justice needs to be done,” Fuller said.
“Because the vast majority of the voting membership of the Senate [are] also members of [the] Students for a Better Tomorrow, Today slate, this is clearly a conflict of interest,” said outgoing J-Board member Adam Wunische. “It is a clear situation of slate members using official powers for their own personal gain—the definition of corruption.”
“I understand the anger felt by the members of Students for a Better Tomorrow, Today,” Wunische continued. “I’m sure they felt cheated by the system, as I’m sure I would feel the same way. But even if you were cheated by the system, the answer cannot be to undermine the system more.”
Student Trustee Pamela Campos-Palma addressed the Senate resolutions and criticized the behavior of new ASPSU members.
“Everyone that’s sitting right here vowed to serve students and vowed to serve this community,” Campos-Palma said. “I really don’t see that happening right now. I see egos and hurt feelings coming first…I am seeing really negative leadership happening.”
“The culture that’s happening here really lends to what’s going to happen in the future, and that is that students are not going to come first; politics are going to come first,” Campos-Palma added.
‘This is about egos’
During the June 9 meeting, voting members of the Senate elected the eighth member of the Student Fee Committee, based on nominations submitted by the Senate. Voting members nominated formerly disqualified candidate Khalid Alballaa, Jonathen Gates and Yousef Khalfan. Khalfan removed himself from the running. Alballaa and Gates responded to Senate questions before voting began.
“I know how to deal with numbers, I know the value of money—finance, accounting—the things I think are necessary to make smart decisions,” Alballaa said. “I have an idea of how the system works. I am really passionate about joining the SFC…I have a great potential in that body to allocate it smarter and to allocate the funds in a better way.”
Outgoing SFC Chair and current ASPSU Chief of Staff Krystine McCants urged the ASPSU members to vote for Gates.
“I believe that Jonathen Gates is the only member who was nominated who can shepherd a process that programs outside of ASPSU have confidence in,” McCants said. “I think that the act of nominating, let alone electing a student so visibly in violation of university policy would be a slap in the face to every program who is asked to follow accountability measures designed by the SFC. This is why I cannot support the election of [Alballaa] to the SFC.”
Despite McCants’ warning, senators voted Alballaa into office with a vote of 14–8 over Gates.
Campos-Palma criticized this vote.
“[Alballaa], I respect you as a person,” Campos-Palma said, “but we need experience right now—not the hurt feelings, not the politics. This last vote was really, really clear to me that this is about politics, and this is about egos.”
The June 9 meeting was in session for four hours, and Smith Memorial Student Union closed before ASPSU members voted on the resolutions. The Senate ruled to address the resolutions at the June 12 meeting.
In with the new
Newly elected members met a second time on June 12 to continue unfinished business from the previous meeting, and voted to fill ASPSU director positions.
The June 12 agenda was set to address the Senate resolutions, which carried over from the previous meeting. A senator and SFC member who had advocated for these resolutions at the previous meeting—Elkins and Backstrom—moved to strike both resolutions from the agenda, though not without debate.
Senator Hoppes and Senator Melinda Joy opposed striking the resolutions from the Senate agenda. They both referenced the comments made during the previous meeting’s hour-long public comment section.
“Last ASPSU meeting I felt continually unsupported,” Hoppes said. “ASPSU is not a team. As a student advocate, I have reached exhaustion.”
“The pressure and the threatening and the abusive language Senate members received on Monday,” Joy said. “You don’t realize what’s going on behind closed doors.”
“I believe in the spirit of [the resolutions], but I think there are better ways to go about things,” said Senator Greta Gibbens. “Based on the public comment in the last meeting, I don’t believe this is the right method.”
Senate Chair Galen Russell assured Senate and meeting attendees that going forwardhe would be enforcing guidelines for the public comment section. He focused on respect and the use of safe language for speakers within the forum.
After the vote to strike the resolutions from the agenda, voting members of the Senate elected eight people to fill ASPSU director positions.
ASPSU members also voted in three new J-Board members. The only previous member remaining on the J-Board will be Chief Justice Victoria Hutfilz. The new J-Board members are Barbara Payne, Nathan Claus and Kate Lindstrom.
ASPSU President Eric Noll and Vice President Rayleen McMillan received 42 applications for director positions. Out of those applications, they have conducted 28 interviews since taking office. The Senate voted to elect all of the nominees presented by Noll and McMillan.
The new directors are as follows:
Tony Funchess, multicultural affairs director.
Jawan Mullen Jr., student life director.
Tia Gomez-Zeller, academic affairs director.
Jarek Hunger, legislative affairs director.
Elyse Cogburn, sustainability affairs director.
Galen Russell, equal rights director, who will also act as Senate chair.
Jonathen Gates, university affairs director.
Andrew Von Tersch, international affairs director.
Von Tersch’s director position vacated a senator seat. The Senate then elected Mona Hutchinson in his place. Hutchinson is a former member of the Associated Students of Portland Community College.
The publicity and design director position is still vacant.
Following the resignation of SFC member Michael Le, the Senate elected a new SFC member. Gates was nominated a second time. Gates was once again outvoted by the Senate, who elected Alexandra Calloway-Nation. Calloway-Nation ran in the election as an
independent candidate.
Noll and McMillan have emphasized a desire to move forward and begin to heal after this elections process. New members of ASPSU will be participating in training and team-building exercises before fall term.
