AS Senate Recap – 2/26/25

text by News Director

03 March, 2025

The AS Senate is a group of elected student representatives which serves as the policy-making body of Associated Students. Every Wednesday at 6:30 PM, the AS Senate convenes to pass bills and resolutions, hear reports from Boards, Committees, and Units (BCUs), and hold public forum.

KCSB’s Joyce Chi brings you a recap of their latest meeting on February 26, 2025.

 

Internal Vice President Açúcar Pinto swears in International Senator Mingjun Zha.

 

The Winter Special Election did not reach its voter threshold. Voting on the three proposed constitutional amendments ended last Friday. According to Elections Board Chair Caleb Hanson, 492 students voted for a 2.2% turnout. 20% was needed to validate the results of the election. Hanson said that because the Special Election is technically invalid, the breakdown of how students voted on the amendments would not be released.

 

 

Budget hearings are on this week. During this time, campus entities will present their proposed budgets to the Senate. The goal of this lengthy and detailed process is to create Associated Students’ budget for the upcoming school year. This is one of the biggest responsibilities our student government – including the Senate, Internal Vice President Açúcar Pinto, and President Nayali Broadway – is tasked with. In fact, as was stressed during last week’s meetings, Senators must be present for at least 50% of the budget hearings or else face a reduction in honoraria.

During the budget hearings, Senators will be considering the rollover for each participating campus entity. Rollover, or carry-forward, refers to the amount of funds that accumulate year to year. It’s a key issue for many Senators, including Off-Campus Senator Taylor Iden, who’s working to propose a constitutional amendment addressing rollover. “Ultimately, the end goal is lean spending, like we’re spending our entire budget,” Iden said. 

Some ideas to address rollover included pausing an organization’s lock-in fee if their rollover is high, in order for them to spend down their budget. Another was to implement across-the-board percentages, with exceptions – so for instance, 90% of an entity’s rollover could be taken and redistributed; that percentage might be lower for something like, say, AS Program Board, which has to store equipment and sign contracts with artists. 

Iden also emphasized the goal of redistributing high rollover within the Association: “By doing this, we would be able to fund the BCUs [Boards, Committees, and Units] who aren’t funded through lock-ins, which is definitely a big bonus for me. Off-Campus Senator and the Senate’s first president pro-tempore Dan Siddiqui agreed: “It’s not like we’re taking away the rollover and personally pocketing it.” 

You can read the 2024-2025 budget created last year here. You’ll see there are tons of details about the Association’s finances regarding departments, lock in fees, rollover, and so on.

 

 

International Senator Ella Yu resigned from her position. We reached out for comment but haven’t heard back. As a Senator, Yu implemented a meal voucher program for students remaining on campus during quarterly breaks. She will continue working with the Global Gaucho Commission as a Policy Director.

Taking her place will be Mingjun Zha, who’s held a litany of positions within AS, like Judicial Councilmember, Senate Parliamentarian, and International Senator in previous years. In an email to us, Zha called Yu one of “the most hardworking and diligent individuals that I have known.”

Zha says he returned in order to work on two projects before he graduates next quarter. The first is to secure a lock-in fee Grammarly For Education, so students would pay $13 a year rather than $144 for Grammarly Pro, which has the same function. “Speaking as an international student, Grammarly has been a lifesaver in correcting my grammar and spelling,” Zha said. 

The other project he listed was addressing lock-in fee rollover. “Rollovers can not be assigned to other AS entities because all lock-in fees have to be spent in accordance with their ballot language,” he said, which is why he wants to propose a constitutional amendment to change that. If a campus group’s rollover exceeded 50% of the money it obtained through its lock-in fee, the amendment would allow “any amount above that threshold” to be set aside for “general use within the association to benefit the students.” 

 

 

What the Senate passed:

A Bill to Create a Mental Health First Aid Subcommittee Under Commission on Student Well-being Legal Code (Lala – Ganesh)

    • This bill would establish a Mental Health First Aid subcommittee under COSWB and the Public and Mental Health Commission (PMHC) to codify the joint Mental Health First Aid trainings they’ve already been hosting.

Civil Society Project (Lala – Iden)

    • This resolution “create[s] civil service goals for the Association to achieve for their peers.” Some of the ten goals include combating fentanyl overdoses, restocking buildings with menstrual products and condoms, and improving cliff safety. Plus, there’s a push to pilot “Rate My Landlord” for housing accountability. Off-Campus Senator Enri Lala said the proposed $40,000 in funding would be given to people or groups “preferably outside of the Association, so that they can bring in fresh expertise and not the things we’ve discussed in here ad nauseam.”

Motion to direct the Outreach Committee to conduct research by holding a survey on the AS bowling alley and billiards hall (Singh – Malhis).

    • Engineering Senator Aryaman Singh said he wanted to test the waters to see how students feel about these referenda before the entire student body could vote on it.

Three motions to transfer funds from the Senate Unallocated account to the honoraria accounts for AS Trans and Queer Commission ($5700), Global Gaucho Commission ($3900), and Commission on Student Well-Being ($4800).

    • As part of their reward for receiving the Outstanding BCU Award, the members of these three campus groups earned a 100% bonus in their honoraria.

 

What the Senate rejected:

    • Allow me to sum up some arguments regarding…
      • Frivolity: Why should we talk about bowling and shooting pool when students are going hungry and struggling to find housing? VS. We don’t have to solely focus on basic needs issues. Also, these initiatives are essentially just polling the student body, not fully committing to any project.
      • Transparency: There needs to be more financial information about the potential costs of these projects. Students need to have all the details before they can make an informed opinion in favor or against this. VS. That kind of information requires a lot of research. If enough students use their vote to demonstrate their interest in these projects, then we can begin the process of determining what the costs would be.
      • Optics: Even just hearing about the referenda could let some students feel betrayed if the bowling alley or billiards hall don’t actually materialize. Also, students’ huge negative reaction to the football team proposal (see: comments on the Daily Nexus’ Instagram post) tells us they want us to focus on basic needs issues. VS. These referenda would just see what the student body wants. If they don’t want the bowling alley or billiards hall, then they would vote against it.
    • The Senate’s rejection of these referenda means they will not appear on the Spring ballot. The final vote tally is as follows: for the billiards hall, 8 Yeses and 15 Nos; for the bowling alley, 7 Yeses, 15 Nos, and 1 Abstention.

 

What the Senate tabled for one week:

  • A Bill to Amend AS Lobby Corps By-Laws (McClintock – Suuck)
    • This bill would make changes requested by Lobby Corps to the parts of Legal Code that relates to their organization. These changes include reorganizing positions and duties, outlining the kinds of meetings they have, and detailing the conditions for Lobby Corps to begin advocating for a certain issue (ex. The Senate can direct their stance, unless it opposes that of the External Vice President for Statewide Affairs.).
  • A Resolution to Update Article IX of the Associated Students’ Constitution (Siddiqui – Zha)
    • This proposed constitutional amendment seeks to promote “student involvement in the personnel and operations of AS.” It would require student participation in “any personnel action” like hiring, firing, or creating a new job position. The Executive Director (currently, Dr. Marisela Marquez) would also have to provide a document “containing all workflows and regularly performed duties within the Association…with all elected officers.”
  • A Bill to Improve Internal AS Operations (Siddiqui – Zha)
    • This one’s a two-parter. First, it encourages more student involvement within hiring for AS, like by requiring that the signature of the AS President (currently, Nayali Broadway) is needed “on any personnel action.” Second, it clarifies the chain of authority stemming from the UC Regents, by adding that the Senate has delegated daily AS operations to AS professional staff, not just the Executive Director. This duty would also be codified as a collaborative process with the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, all of which is “subject to oversight and direction by Executive Officers and Elected Senators.”

Access this week’s AS Senate agenda (which includes their bills and resolutions) using your student email here. You can see last week’s agenda here. Meetings are typically held each week at the Flying A Room of the University Center (Main Floor) throughout the quarter, aside from Week 10. You can also watch live and past meetings on Facebook here.

Posted in News, AS Senate