The ASUCI Senate did not pass the legislation proposing the special election timeline needed to hold the recall special election which would replace and recall 23 senators. The Senate voted to move legislation to the Rules and Oversight Committee for review with 15 people in support and seven opposing on April 16. This is the second time that the Senate does not pass the recall election timeline.

Engineering Senator Bryce Lindsey — one of the 23 recalled senators — motioned for the special election timeline to be moved to the Rules and Oversight Committee for review after it was introduced. Every recalled senator present — except Senators Tammy Dang, Alexis Artounian and Christlyn Du — voted in favor of moving it to the rules committee instead of definitively voting on the timeline on the senate floor.

The New University reached out to Lindsey to ask why he thought that the legislation needed to be moved to the rules committee, but he did not respond.

Senators Ivan Fonseca and Michelle Mallari — both of whom are not recalled and are running for re-election — introduced legislation R55-62 to propose the new timeline. The legislation provided a new timeline for the recall special elections because the Senate did not pass the first special elections timeline — also introduced by Fonseca and Mallari — that had initially been proposed. Senator Joshua Wolfe — one of the recalled senators running for re-election — motioned for the first timeline legislation to be moved to the rules committee for review, but the committee never brought the legislation to the senate floor.

A majority of the members of the rules committee need to approve that the legislation be moved to the senate floor. Six out of the seven members — Senators Amanda Clark, Joshua Wolfe, Marshall Roe, Ryan Salatti, Nick Ortiz and Russell Matias — have been recalled.

“It is clear that this senate and Rules and Oversight Committee have no interest in passing the special election timeline. So I have no hope it will pass; however, it is the job of the elections commissioner Gregory Torres to continue and propose a special election once [it is] triggered. It is my job as a member of the Rules and Oversight Committee to continue to attempt to hold the Senate accountable,” Senator Fonseca said. He is the only member of the rules committee who has not been recalled.

ASUCI Senator Saad Iqbal — one of the senators that is not recalled and is running for re-election — opposed the motion to move the legislation to the rules committee, saying that the legislation looked good and did not need to be reviewed.

Elections Commissioner Gregory Torres said that he does not believe the legislation needs to be reviewed, but if the Senate believed that they needed to discuss the legislation, they could have discussed it on the floor before moving it to the rules committee, but they did not.

“No part of the new revised election timeline is being reviewed and no part was being reviewed with the last one. The Senate simply does not want to be recalled, completely disregarding the will of their constituents. No part of the legislation will be changed. It will just sit in the committee until the dates are null. At that point, I will just write another special election legislation and continue to do so until the year ends. By the end of the quarter, there will probably be five sitting in the committee highlighting the Senate’s immense corruption,” Fonseca said.

Oriana Gonzalez is the 2019-2020 Editor-In-Chief. She can be reached at eic@newuniversity.org.

