Kallaway representative may be ineligible
The ASUO president may have appointed a student to the Student Senate ineligible to vote in the race for his own seat, although nobody I’ve yet talked to seems to know with certainty whether that’s the case.
The student is ethnic studies major Xavier Aranda, whom everyone on the Senate seemed Wednesday night to agree was personally qualified for Senate Seat 14, the seat whose occupant represents students majoring in ethnic studies and 24 other linguistic and social studies disciplines.
Aranda, however, is also a Cal. State East Bay student attending the University of Oregon through the National Student Exchange. NSE students are represented by seat 19, which also represents journalism students. Former ASUO Elections Coordintor Aaron Tuttle said said NSE students “probably only vote for that seat.”
However, Tuttle was only guessing. The person likeliest to have answers, University tech support staffer Tim Ketchum, didn’t return my 3:30 p.m. phone call Wednesday.
Tuttle did say, though, that, if Aranda were in fact not eligible to vote for Seat 14, it he believed it would not make him ineligible to be appointed to it, because his is a mid-year appointment.
Aranda’s appointment was deferred in a narrow vote by the Senate on Wednesday night pending a ruling on whether he is eligible by the ASUO Constitution Court. His appointment was debated vigorously and at length by the Senate and he stood by and watched, becoming more and more downcast as he did.
Nevertheless, when I asked him afterward, he said that while he learned a lot about how the Senate works (and I believe as a Commentator contributor I’m obliged to view that as something dispiriting), he still wanted to be a senator. While I know nothing else about him other than what I’ve already said and what’s in this very interesting autobiographical capsule, I have to say I admire that kind of pluck (or moxy, as an OC editor emeritus is fond of putting it).
