Student government nominates treasurers, elects committee chairs
The newly created Illinois Student Government held its first meeting Wednesday at the Illini Union. During the meeting, the senators went through the entire constitution page-by-page and adopted each by-law.
January 25, 2017
As a requirement of the new constitution, the Illinois Student Government nominated a few senators Wednesday for the positions of treasurer and Champaign City Council liaison.
The treasurer serves as the chief financial officer for the government. The nominees were Tommy Justison, sophomore in ACES, and Jaime Garza, senior in Business. Both are currently senators, and the appointed treasurer will be required to abandon the position as senator in order to accept the job.
The nominations were sent to president Ron Lewis, who will appoint Justison, Garza or someone of his own choice. The senate will then confirm the appointment with a majority vote.
Junior in Engineering student Rahul Raju was the sole nominee for liaison to the Champaign City Council position.
The government also focused on electing the chair of the financial affairs committee as well as the chair for the committee of academic affairs.
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Vice President Alex Villanueva nominated junior in LAS, Annalise Roncone, to be the chair for the committee of financial affairs.
During her speech, Roncone emphasized her experience working on different committees in the senate and was successfully elected chair of the committee of financial affairs.
Villanueva also nominated Rhiannon Szofer to be the chair for the committee of academic affairs.
In her speech, Szofer also highlighted her experience.
“I’ve been vice chair (of the committee for academic affairs) for the last semester,” she said. “We are working on the teaching excellence awards, so with the help of members, I’ll be overseeing that. I feel it’d be best if I sit on this so I can complete our goals for this semester.”
Szofer won the election with no debate from the other senators.
The senate also voted to push back the ratification of the constitution another week, so that everyone has more time to read over each title. Due to this decision, the senate was unable to nominate people to preside on the judiciary.
“The register is a massive document that’s really comprehensive and people feel like they haven’t had enough time to look through it,” Villanueva said. “Another week will not bother us so everyone in this room knows what they’re voting on and there are no regrets.”
