The 52nd Student Government Association (SGA) convened on Monday night to amend the Elections Code and confirm Katherine Huang (17Ox, 19B) as the permanent replacement for former Vice President of Finance Paul Park (17Ox, 19B).
Electoral Reforms Commission Presents Revisions
The Electoral Reform Commission made a total of 151 changes to the Elections Code and codified them in Bill 52sl42, which passed unanimously. The proposal will need to be passed another time to be approved.
Changes include clarifying several definitions in the Elections Code, involving staff advisers more in the election process and holding an annual rules audit to address any issues with future election cycles. Additional changes called for Elections Board members to recuse themselves from cases in the event of a conflict of interest.
The commission also proposed including an incorporation clause which would allow the Elections Board to respond to any issues of “semantics or violations of the spirit of the rules that are clearly unfair and unethical.”
Commission members told the Wheel after SGA’s meeting that the commission sought to improve electoral transparency.
SGA Confirms Huang as VP of Finance
SGA unanimously confirmed Huang as vice president of finance as it grapples with how to remedy over-allocating funds by $28,019.33 this year.
SGA President Dwight Ma (17Ox, 19C) fired Park, the former VP, on Jan. 20 after receiving complaints about performance and organization issues, the Wheel previously reported. Huang formerly served as the assistant vice president of finance.
SGA Freshman Representative and Finance Committee member Mo Singhal (22C) said it was imperative that Huang be confirmed.
“Speaking as part of Finance Committee, if you don’t elect her, the Finance Committee will be in shambles,” Singhal said. “I will say that Katherine being fresh and not having seen most of this before actually helped us quite a bit in the sense that she is very critical of what we all do. I think we all need that.”
SGA Senior Representative Owen Lynch (17Ox, 19C) also voiced his support for Huang, having known her when he had served on the Oxford SGA. Huang had been on the Finance Committee at Oxford in 2018.
“She was always very hard working. She knew what she was doing. She was a good leader in terms of like delegating responsibilities. I’m really confident she will thrive in this role,” Lynch said.
Huang was not present at the meeting.
Second Impeachment Inquiry Against Ma
Vice President of Communications Tiffany Haas (19C) submitted a request for a Hearing of Inquiry for the impeachment of SGA President Dwight Ma (17Ox, 19C) on Sunday. However, the legislature unanimously voted to table the hearing for the next meeting on the grounds that Ma was not given sufficient notice.
Correction (2/8/19 at 1:50 p.m.): A previous version of this article included changes to the Elections Code bill that were not accurately described. The article has also been updated to clarify that the bill will need to pass a second time to be approved.
