SG Separation Stopped
Proposal to Ban Holding “Weekly,” Cabinet Positions Fails
Senior Tess Wayland is a unique member of the Parker student body. Last year, she applied to be Editor-In-Chief of “The Parker Weekly” in addition to running for the Director of Committee Affairs (DCA) of Student Government (SG). The “Weekly” applicants for Editor-In-Chief (EIC) are named before the SG elections occur.
Wayland was awarded the position of “The Weekly” EIC while still running for DCA. Wayland won the race for DCA too. Currently, she holds both positions and has not received any formal negative feedback for her performance in either role. Though the constitution did not allow someone running to be a committee head to also run for an elected Cabinet position, it did not address those who had applied to be a head instead of campaigning.
President Eli Moog and Parliamentarian Davu Hemphill-Smith authored a proposal which would block any student from hold- ing both an elected cabinet-level position and being a committee head, appointed or elected. Moog noted that people had differ- ent interpretations of Article X, Section F, Clause 2 in the Constitution, which addressed people holding multiple positions.
“Last year we ran into it, it was an unfortunate situation, and it was handled very very poorly,” Moog said. “There was a long-standing practice that you couldn’t be a “Weekly” Editor and an elected member of cabinet, and it was just more of a convention or thing that we followed.”
Hemphill-Smith had a different posi- tion on the importance of this proposal . “The reason this proposal is necessary is because it creates a more fair and diverse group of leaders within our student govern- ment,” Hemphill-Smith said.
Because the EIC position was an elected one until 2011, Moog said that the constitution was not clear after the change to the selection process was made. “It is not clear in the constitution whether you can or cannot be both. So we just want to make sure that we put this change in there.”
The need for this proposal was unclear to many students, and Moog wanted to inform the student body why he believed this proposal was crucial — namely, potential conflicts of interest between “The Weekly” and Student Government.
Sophomore Arjun Kalra agreed, coming to the Plenary mic to say that the proposal benefited students and emphasize the issue with conflict of interest.
Additionally, one of the DCA’s main responsibilities is to give committees grades and to “release reports for all committees four times throughout the year,” according to the Constitution. This can become a diffi-
cult responsibility when the DCA is tasked with grading their own performance. “It’s also kind of weird for the DCA to be grading their own committee,” Moog said.
When grading occurred this year, Wayland left the stage for her commit- tee’s grade to be delivered, and handed the microphone to Moog. “This is not to limit someone’s power, it’s just to try to share the love and make sure that everyone gets a fair process,” Moog said.
“If people want to be super involved, let them be super involved,” senior Evan Ehrhart said in the Plenary minutes.
According to Moog the 2021-22 election “was handled extremely poorly.” This was especially frustrating to him as he served as a Senate Head tasked with assisting the democratic process and a candidate for the highest SG office. Moog said that he intends to make numerous changes and to improve the SG election process.
Over 80% of the plenary Friday did not agree that this proposal should pass. This means that when the election for the 2022-23 cabinet rolls around, we may be in a similar situation to last year.
