ASUCD Senate

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senatrama05ii-01b.jpgSpring 2005 Senate.

The ASUCD Senate consists of 22 elected and non-elected students who collectively adopt and manage the association's 11.1 million dollar budget, considers bills and resolutions and individually and jointly undertake various projects designed to enhance the quality of life for students on campus . Senate meetings are open to the public, and held every Thursday during the school year, in the Mee Room (3rd floor Memorial Union) starting at 6:10pm. Minutes of each meeting are typically available in SGAO (also 3rd floor Memorial Union).

As for elections, all undergraduate students at UCD can vote for anyone they want. In addition to independent candidates, there are "slates" here at UC Davis — akin to political parties. Slates with current officials are:

SMART
NOW
BEST
Independent

See Senate History for historical information, or see Slates for newly formed, inactive, or past slates that do not currently have elected officials.

  1. Composition
    1. Senators (12, elected, voting)
    2. Commission Chairs (7, appointed, non-voting)
    3. Other Ex-Officio Members (2, appointed, non-voting)
  2. Power Structure
  3. Scandals/Corruption
  4. Election Information
  5. Common Beginnings and Campus Affiliations
            Current ASUCD Scandal Level
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Composition

Presiding Officer: ASUCD Vice President (1, elected, tie-voting) Yena Bae

Senators (12, elected, voting)

Senator E-mail address Slate Office Hours
Liam Burke <lmburke AT ucdavis DOT edu> Independent; BEST friend MW 4-6 pm
Armando Figueroa <armfigueroa AT ucdavis DOT edu> SMART Unknown
Maxwell Kappes <makappes AT ucdavis DOT edu> FUCK, formerly S.L.A.T.E., & Independent; BEST friend Unknown
Pamela Nonga <pamnonga AT ucdavis DOT edu> NOW Unknown
Felicia Ong <fong AT ucdavis DOT edu> NOW Unknown
Alyson Noele Sagala <ansagala AT ucdavis DOT edu> SMART Unknown
Amrit Kaur Sahota <aksahota AT ucdavis DOT edu> NOW Unknown
Miles Thomas <mrthomas AT ucdavis DOT edu> BEST MWF 1-4pm
Tal Topf* <tetopf AT ucdavis DOT edu> NOW Unknown
Reuben Torres <unknown AT ucdavis DOT edu> SMART Unknown
Ryan Wonders <rpwonders AT ucdavis DOT edu> NOW Unknown
Yee Xiong <xiong AT ucdavis DOT edu> SMART Unknown

* President Pro Tempore of the Senate

Commission Chairs (7, appointed, non-voting)

Commission Chairs are ex-officio members of the senate and senators are ex-officio members of commissions.

Commission Chair E-mail address Commission Office Hours
Desirae Costello <dkcostello AT ucdavis DOT edu> Academic Affairs unknown
Mani Diaz-Ordaz <ediazordaz AT ucdavis DOT edu> Ethnic and Cultural Affairs unknown
Chucha Marquez <jdmarquez AT ucdavis DOT edu> Gender and Sexualities unknown
Sergio Cano <secano AT ucdavis DOT edu> Internal Affairs unknown
Emily Gerhart <eagerhart AT ucdavis DOT edu> External Affairs unknown
Tanzi Jackson <tpjackson AT gmail DOT com> Environmental Policy and Planning unknown
Rylan Schaeffer <ryschaeffer AT ucdavis DOT edu> Business and Finance unknown

Other Ex-Officio Members (2, appointed, non-voting)

Kate Calderazzo Outreach Assembly Speaker unknown
Melanie Maemura ASUCD Controller By appointment

The Senate is responsible for voting on and creating bills and orders that say how ASUCD should operate. Being a Senator is a very important job because of the sheer size of ASUCD. Also, ASUCD Senators and other executives are often invited, through the University, to various important social and political functions. An example of this is the summer 2005 function [WWW]"Perspectives on Poverty", which featured Colin Powell, John Edwards, and John Ashcroft.

A past senate seems to have had a bit of an attendance problem. This led 4 past senators to write a [WWW]letter to the editor in the Aggie.

Senators also hire Senate Interns, who serve as volunteer assistants. Despite the fact that these are always advertised in elections as qualifications, they are typically [wikipedia]sinecure offices.

Power Structure

Disclaimer: This was written by Maxwell Kappes. He takes pride in being a special snowflake with his votes and is known in senate for either being a joke or hating everyone depending on how the person feels about him at any given point. As such this may or may not be an ego stroke for him more than a quality power structure. But then again, do you see any other political scientists in senate?

There are currently three slates at the senate table: NOW, BEST, and SMART. There are also two independents. NOW has 5 seats, BEST has 1, and SMART has 4. Unlike the Fall 2012 senators, who are more "ideologically pure" to their respective slates, the new senators are not so. NOW suffered in the Fall election, only gaining 2 seats. In the election, by not forcing their ideology as much they managed to win a third seat. SMART as well only elected one pure SMART senator. This means that while there are more senators aligned with parties in this table than the last there are many who seem to not feel story ties to their parties or ideology.

The Fall senators have sat through 21 contentious votes. Some votes are dividing the house, some are for pro-temp, some are for vetoes, and some are on bills. 10 with the Winter 2012 senators and 11 with the Winter 2013 senators. At the first table much of the disagreement as on party lines, making it difficult to vote against both parties simultaneously. On the second table less votes have been forced by parties than by senators Maxwell Kappes and Miles Thomas, making many of the votes more-or-less bipartisan. Because of this the Winter senators aggregate votes are generally more in line with the bipartisanship than the Fall senators.

voteupdate1.png

And then there is this handy graph. The percentages indicate now often each senator votes with each party. 3 NOW senators are highly partisan, voting with their party at least 90% of the time (Felicia Ong (35,96), Tal Topf (43,96), and Ryan Wonders (55,100)). Likewise, all SMART senators vote with their party at least 90% of the time(Armando Figueroa (91,26), Alyson Noele Sagala (96,35), Reuben Torres (91,64), and Yee Xiong (91,45)). This creates a fast 3-4 split in the senate in favor of SMART. From there Pamela Nonga (82,55) lies closer to the SMART party center (92,43) and Amrit Kaur Sahota (64,73) lies closer to the NOW party center (56, 84), meaning both parties can sway their senators to their side. This creates the 4-5 split. From there Liam Burke (74,65) lies closest to the table center (68,56) and is not particularly close to either side, making him a swing vote. On the other side Maxwell Kappes (43,9) is more of a contrarian who votes with SMART more than NOW but can not be relied upon. Miles Thomas (45,9) is similarly contrarian but is also a former member of SMART and has consistently voted with them on NOW v SMART votes, allowing SMART to count on him in deciding votes. This brings the table to a 4-6 split in favor of SMART with Kappes and Burke running the center on partisan votes.

Scandals/Corruption

blacksheep.jpgASUCD's legislative body wasn't always so contentious.

The ASUCD Senate has generated some interesting scandals recently. These include:

Election Information

scandalmeter.jpgThe original Scandal Meter, Fall 2005 The Elections Committee is responsible for elections matters. The Senate is elected using the Choice Voting method.

Common Beginnings and Campus Affiliations

ex.:

Campus Organizations
ΔΣ: Darnell Holloway#
ΣΧ: Andrew Bianchi, Danny Garrett, Lamar Heystek, Trevor Taylor, Devin Whitney*
ΦΑΔ: Lula Ahmed-Falol, Naomi Amaha, Sergio Blanco, Aarom Bloom*, [Users/StevenLee]*, Eli Yani#, Tracey Zeng
Davis Anime Club: Miles Thomas, Maxwell Kappes, and Alyson Noele Sagala

ASUCD Positions
Internal Affairs Commission: Maxwell Kappes
External Affairs Commission: Felicia Ong
Academic Affairs Commission: Liam Burke
Outreach Assembly: Miles Thomas

* Served as ex-officio members
# Served as both ex-officio member and elected official

See ASUCD Elections for more in-depth information on past elections.

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