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Special election to fill vacancies
By Billy Schear and Steven Sinclair
wschear@mscd.edu • ssincla1@mscd.edu

Metro’s Student Government Assembly has decided to form a commission to organize a special election to fill the vacant positions of vice president and Student Advisory Committee to the Auraria Board representative.

The vice presidency spot is vacant due to a lack of candidates in the spring 2006 election. The SGA constitution requires in this event that the president appoint someone to fill the position, but disputes over the eligibility of several candidates have held up the process. Jordan Bair, the previous SACAB representative, resigned, in part over these disputes, creating the second vacancy.

The SGA will advertise for the commission through e-mail bulletins sent to Metro students and through ads in The Metropolitan.

“Some people I’ve interviewed have expressed interest,” SGA president Jack Wylie said. “We’ll be looking for people of the best quality.”

However, the SGA has expressed concerns about how many students that will include.

“We’re anticipating that we’re not going to receive much participation,” said former speaker pro tempore and interim vice president, Carlos Lopez.

“Avoiding this is one of our biggest concerns,” Wylie said. “Historically … this has been a large dilemma.”

President Wylie is considering assigning at least one SGA member to be on the election commission to serve in an advisory position with “no vested interest,” Wylie said.

The SGA remains cautious about the previous election commission assembled last spring, which did not hold an election and eventually dissolved.

In September, Wylie nominated Lopez, interim vice president, but the nomination was denied by the rules and ethics committee, represented by Senator Andrew Bateman and Senate Chair Kurt White, and by the speaker of the senate, Jesse Samora.

They said that the nomination was in violation of the SGA’s constitution citing section 14b of the SGA bylaws, which says, “Lateral moves within and between the branches of the Student Government Assembly are not allowed.”

Wylie maintained that Lopez’s appointment is a promotion rather than a lateral move. He cited the greater pay and increased responsibilities as reasons the move should be considered a promotion.

On Oct. 13, the student court held a hearing on the matter. Presiding over the hearing was the chief justice of the student court, Christopher Boyd, who emphasized, “Anything considering the constitution isn’t a light matter.”

The committee stated that Lopez needs to resign his position as senate speaker pro tempore before he can be considered for a post as an officer in the executive branch of the SGA. This move, however, is also not allowed under section 16b of the bylaws, which states that an SGA member who resigns cannot be reappointed in the SGA during the same term.

The committee stated that the two sections be taken together to restrict movement between the branches of the SGA. White said that president Wylie has been comparing SGA to a business by referring to Lopez’s potential appointment as a promotion, an assertion which puts the executive branch of SGA above the legislative and judicial branches and defies the purpose of a three-branch system.

A decision on the matter will be reached by Oct. 20, according to the student court, and though Lopez has not been appointed vice president nor plans to run in the upcoming election, the ruling will set a precedent should the same conflict arise in the future.