ASG Senate votes no confidence in parliamentarian election

Medill+freshman+David+Guirgis+and+Weinberg+freshman+Mary+Pedraza+run+for+parliamentarian.+Senate+voted+no+confidence+and+will+have+parliamentarian+elections+again+next+week.+

Katie Pach/Daily Senior Staffer

Medill freshman David Guirgis and Weinberg freshman Mary Pedraza run for parliamentarian. Senate voted no confidence and will have parliamentarian elections again next week.

Jonah Dylan, Print Development and Recruitment Editor

Associated Student Government Senate did not elect a parliamentarian Wednesday, instead voting no confidence on the two candidates.

Medill freshman David Guirgis, a former Daily columnist, and Weinberg freshman Mary Pedraza ran for the position, which requires taking attendance and overseeing the Rules Committee.

The candidates were rejected on a 24-3-1 vote with three votes for Guirgis, one vote for Pedraza and 24 votes for no confidence. The two candidates are first-year members of ASG, while current parliamentarian Daniella Lumpkin is a junior and had previously served on the Judicial Reform Ad-Hoc Committee before taking the position.

Senate will hold parliamentarian elections again next week after Senate approved Weinberg junior Lars Benson’s motion to suspend the rules.

Later in the meeting, Senate elected Lumpkin as Speaker of the Senate. Lumpkin will succeed Weinberg junior Nehaarika Mulukutla, who announced Tuesday an uncontested campaign for ASG president with her running mate, Weinberg junior Rosalie Gambrah.

Addressing Senate before the vote, Lumpkin said she’d like to engage the whole student body in ASG.

“If you interpret Speaker of the Senate as simply the person who stands in front of the room, you’re doing a disservice to the job,” the Weinberg junior said. “Speaking, both inwardly to this room and outwardly, is important, so I do want to see more engagement.”

Lumpkin won by a 17-8 vote against SESP sophomore Justine Kim, the senator for the Korean American Student Association and a member of the Rules Committee.

Kim told senators she’d also like to improve the relationship between the general student population and ASG.

“Leading by example is important, especially when it comes to establishing the culture of Senate,” Kim said. “There’s a sort of lapse between the undergraduate community and student government, and I think that’s a really important point to address, both as a Senate but also as a Speaker.”

Lumpkin had previously served as a Rainbow Alliance senator, and she served on ASG’s executive board for several weeks last quarter after she was elected to replace previous Parliamentarian Shelby Reitman. Reitman resigned at the conclusion of Winter Quarter, before her term ended.

Lumpkin added her experience as parliamentarian would help her stay unbiased as Speaker of the Senate.

“I was able to (be impartial), not because I just forced myself to be quiet, but in the sense that it kind of forced me to think a little bit more about how people are feeling,” she said. “It was about understanding that despite my personal beliefs on certain issues, the whole role of this room is to be representative of the student body.”

ASG President Christina Cilento told The Daily she was unsure of the last time Senate voted no confidence in a parliamentarian election, but that it had not happened in the last three years.

Senate also passed emergency legislation to slightly amend the rules of the commission created in February to appoint undergraduate students to the Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility. In addition, the election commission made a formal announcement to Senate that there would only be one ticket for ASG president and executive vice president.

Vice president for A-status finances Daniel Wu, a Weinberg junior, presented minor changes to the A-status code that will be voted on next week.

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