About 20 members of Dance Marathon and A&O Productions left Wednesday night’s ASG meeting disappointed after the Senate denied their request for extra funding. Senators also did not pass Associated Student Government President Jon Webber’s initiative to move campuswide executive board elections from the spring to Winter Quarter.

A&O and DM came to Senate to ask for more funding for next Wednesday’s Ben Kweller and OK Go concert. A&O plans to donate 25 percent of their profits to DM’s philanthropy for the year, Bear Necessities Pediatric Cancer Foundation, while the remaining 75 percent of proceeds must be funneled back into ASG funding for student groups.

The two groups asked the Student Activities Finance Board, ASG’s financial arm, to allow DM to keep an additional 25 percent of the revenue, estimated at about $3,000, because they consider the event a co-sponsorship. SAFB denied their request, and many members of the groups came to the meeting to ask senators to overturn SAFB’s decision.

“I really feel that we could make a big difference and set a precedent for other student groups to work together,” A&O Chairman Alex White, a SESP senior, told senators.

SAFB members argued that giving the groups extra funds would violate guidelines. The Student Activities Fee, a $44 quarterly fee that students pay with tuition, is used to fund mostly A-status groups, not B-status groups such as DM, they said. Also, DM is not putting any of their own money toward the event, they said.

“They want to work together, and we want to encourage that, but the right way to (change the rules) is at the guideline review,” said Ivy LeTourneau, a SESP senior and member of SAFB. A guideline review is held during the winter. “It’s the fairest way to do that.”

DM Executive Co-Chairwomen Krysta Kauble and Tara Corrigan, both Communication seniors, told the Senate there wasn’t time to go to guideline review before the upcoming concert, and presented information about the philanthropy, which helps families struggling with pediatric cancer.

“Please do not vote on cause,” said Financial Vice President and SAFB Chairwoman Aneesa Arshad, a SESP senior. “While these are great student groups that I respect so much, this would set a precedent for B-status groups to receive money from events they did not contribute to. SAF is paid for by students to fund student programming on campus, it is not for philanthropy.”

The Senate voted unanimously to not overturn SAFB’s decision.

ASG President Webber’s initiative to move campuswide elections to Winter Quarter was narrowly denied.

Supporters of the initiative, including all of the current elected executive board members, said changing the date of elections would give future executive boards more control over their budget as well as more time to start projects before summer. It would also align elections closer to the start of the Financial Vice President’s term, which begins in Winter Quarter.

Currently, the ASG budget for the coming year is passed before the new executive board is elected, leaving them with a budget designed by the previous administration.

“The last three years, I see every spring quarter go by, I don’t see things happen, and it frustrates me,” said Webber, a Weinberg senior. He added that he had spoken with past ASG presidents who had similar problems. “If I had to stand up here and cut short another guy’s term, I’d think differently, but I’m standing up here, and it’s my term.”

Executive Vice President and Weinberg junior Matt Bogusz said that Spring Quarter is usually bogged down in clumsy transitions and the student voice is not adequately represented.

“The admin wins when ASG does not have their (act) together,” he told the Senate. “Every administrator we talked to uses the line, ‘Let’s talk about it next year when we come back to school.’ The admin wins. They absolutely love it; they don’t have to worry about us in the spring.”

Senator Mark Crain spoke against the move, saying student group leaders would not have the chance to run for ASG positions because many of them would still be student group leaders during Winter Quarter.

“In the ASG elections, the most competition is between the insiders of ASG and people coming from student groups who have huge constituencies and who are able to mobilize students,” Crain said. “If we move elections to the middle of winter quarter, we’re alienating a lot of people who would run for these positions simply because they don’t have the time.”

“ASG is not the president’s machine,” he added. “ASG is the senate’s voice, the student body’s voice, and the majority of the action should be coming from you all.”

Senator Cassie Witten also spoke against the initiative, saying that splitting executive board terms between two academic years is problematic.

“The idea of a president is to energize and mobilize the student body … He cannot do that with a huge hiatus,” Witten said. “How can we possibly expect to get something accomplished with a huge chunk in the middle of his term … It’s like cutting your leader off at his knees.”

The constitutional amendment needed a two-thirds majority to pass, and upon recount it did not have the votes needed.

Senators unanimously passed another bill that requires all ASG spending of more than $250 to be presented before Senate. Webber also described why he decided to not renew the contract a couple of weeks ago for the ASG-funded lawyer at the Student Legal Services office, and was met with little reaction from senators.

Two new bills from Students for Ecological and Environmental Development were also presented during the two-hour meeting. The bills asked ASG to encourage the university to improve outdoor recycling bins and form an official recycling cooperation between students and facilities management.

Reach Steph Yiu at [email protected].