Members of the student senate have either been keeping inaccurate records of meetings or have failed to follow their own governing rules concerning non-elected positions.
Powers and responsibilities chairman and uncontested speaker of the senate candidate JD Jacobus said the inaccuracy of these documents was the result of a mistake. However, multiple people have reported discrepancies in the way their interviews were conducted, specifically with the number of committee members present during the interviews.
Every person who applies for a senate position or is nominated to a position by the student body president is required to interview with the powers and responsibilities committee, according to Section 2-6-10 and Section 2-7-20 of the Student Government codes.
“It is a good faith system,” speaker pro tempore Brandon Patrick said.
Positions approved by the senate, rather than voted on by the student body, include the executive cabinet, executive staff, the elections commission, comptroller, senator and the constitutional council. Some duties of these positions include passing legislation, programming, ensuring fair elections and allocating the $185,367 in funds made available to all student organizations.
These are the primary responsibilities of Student Government as a whole.
The main role of the powers and responsibilities committee is to conduct interviews and the consideration process for vacant senate seats and positions nominated by the student body president.
The powers committee cannot conduct interviews unless four members of the committee are present, according to Section 2-3-200 of the codes.
According to a cabinet member and two former senators who interviewed with the powers and responsibilities committee, there were less than four committee members participating in their interviews. But the attendance on the meeting minutes for these interviews states there were four people present in each case.
Jacobus said he does not understand why interviewees stated there were fewer than four people in the interview.
“I would not risk my job for anyone,” Jacobus said. “I would not ever put myself in that position to be impeached … I would never risk that. I respect my job too much.”
Patrick Ellis, who was speaker of the student senate for the 2018-2019 school year, applied for a senate seat in May 2019.
“Everyone must receive an interview,” Ellis said. “In my sophomore year, we had 108 applications in one week, and we had to interview every one of them.”
During the application process on Aug. 28, Ellis’ name was read by the clerk at a senate meeting, along with the names of others applying for positions. This practice is known as being “read across the desk,” and it is the first step for a candidate to be considered for a senate position.
After Ellis was read across the desk, Jacobus texted Ellis asking if he “had come to [his] senses” about applying for senate.
Everyone who applies for a senate position is read across the desk at the next meeting then is referred to the powers and responsibilities committee for an interview, according to Section 2-7-10 of the codes.
“I told him I still wanted the interview. He told me that, 'Okay, you can have your interview on Sunday, Sept. 8,' which would have been after the next senate session," Ellis said. "I told him the codes dictated that I get one within a week and then I wanted my interview before the fourth if at all possible. He said, he basically said no. He said, 'I disagree with your interpretation.'”
Speaker of the Student Senate Davis Latham said the codes are not clear, and there is a bill to replace chapter two of the Student Government codes to eliminate confusion about the interviewing process.
Ellis’ interview with the powers and judiciary committees was scheduled for Sept. 8.
On Sept. 4, Jacobus texted Ellis “are you positive you want an interview, you know, I'm going to vote unfavorably personally.”
“What I meant by that was Patrick, like, I'm a good friend of yours,” Jacobus said. “I would appreciate it if you listen to my advice. I didn't say that my whole committee would unanimously find him unfavorable ... I imagine if he had done the interview, he probably would have been found favorable, to be honest.”
On the day of his scheduled interview, Ellis was nominated to be elections commissioner, so he withdrew his application for the senate seat, and his interview for that position never took place. He interviewed with the powers and responsibilities committee and the judiciary committee for elections commissioner on Sept. 29, where he was found unfavorable by both committees.
The powers and responsibilities minutes show that Jacobus, his vice-chair Emma Scott and senator Katherine Zeller voted on Ellis’ suitability for the elections commissioner position. However, a memorandum discussing Ellis’ favorability sent to Latham states Jacobus, Scott, Zeller and Michelle Long voted on Ellis’ favorability.
Jacobus said the discrepancy between the minutes and the memo is due to Scott. He said Long called into the interview.
Scott and Long were contacted over the weekend and have yet to respond.
“I would say the purpose of the minutes is to know how we voted as a committee and how the interviews went,” Jacobus said. “Chairman Scott definitely should have put Michelle on there because she did contribute entire time to the interviews. I would say that's her mistake.”
Ellis said he was not aware of anyone attending the meeting by phone.
The codes do not specify if a committee member can call into an interview to meet the required minimum of attendees.
On Feb. 4, Ellis was nominated for a general elections commission position, but he was found to be an unfavorable candidate after being unable to attend the interview scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 9.
“I am on the university mock trial team. And so I had the regional championship for our team this weekend,” said Ellis. “So I left Columbia Friday night to go to Richmond, Virginia.”
Chairman of the judiciary committee Patrick Greene had been the one communicating with Ellis to schedule an interview for the general elections commission position.
"There was not a time, between Sunday at midnight and this meeting, that four people were going to be able to get together,” Greene said at a senate meeting. “He reached out and offered to do it via Skype, but we don't conduct interviews that way, 'cause we've got problems with whether or not that actually counts as being present and stuff like that.”
In the senate’s rules and procedures, it states “the committee should make a reasonable effort to accommodate for the applicant’s schedule.”
“I feel like we did because we gave them all Sunday. I mean, we have interview people as late as eight o'clock on a Sunday evening,” Jacobus said. “Like we definitely did make an effort to accommodate him. But he didn't, we were not available anytime Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. And we could not table that.”
As the attorney general, Paul Schwarzentraub is a nonvoting member of the judiciary committee which is one of the committees that interviews appointments for the elections commission.
“I have sat in on some interviews and there have been situations where if someone couldn’t make they would find them unfavorable but then would reinterview, try and set it up for the next week that way they would be able to deliver a report,” said Schwarzentraub. “Sometimes they can withhold a report because they haven't had that interview.”
— News writer Meghan Crum contributed to the reporting of this article
Correction — Feb. 17, 10:06 a.m.: Due to a misunderstanding in the interview of Davis Latham, a previous version of this article gave incorrect context around a statement about the attorney general's presence in an interview. Latham was referring to the Feb. 9 interview that Ellis was not able to attend, not the Sept. 29 interview, when he stated that the attorney general was present. The attorney general was not present in the Sept. 29 interview of Patrick Ellis for elections commissioner.