The last Student Senate meeting before Student Government Fall elections next week ended the current legislative session with a dull roar.
The Senate proceeded on schedule Tuesday night after barely making quorum with 56 senators present out of a total 100. In order to start official business during the meeting, quorum must be met.
In the wake of midterm exams, a case of Business Finance exam claimed half the seats in the Senate chambers.
Sen. Daniella Saetta, Students Party president, said exams, rain and errands resulted in her party’s low attendance.
“It’s bound to happen with such a little caucus,” she said.
The Senate passed allocations bills granting funding to Pride Student Union’s trip to the oSTEM conference and the Virgil Hawkins Pre-Law Society.
It also unanimously approved Student Body President Christina Bonarrigo’s appointment of Bianca Lurate as executive athletics and recreation secretary and a Senate crash course on how to be more LGBTQ-sensitive.
A brief debate preceded the Senate’s unanimous approval for a reserve transfer of $20,000 to SG for an updated campus Veterans Memorial.
After the meeting, Swamp Party member Davis Bean and Joseph Michaels held an impromptu gathering for their members in the UF College of Law courtyard.
Bean called senator attendance both in the Senate and at senator-sponsored events “abysmal.”
“We were the party that had a presence today,” Michaels said.
A version of this story ran on page 4 on 9/25/2013 under the headline "Student Senate does little at last pre-election meeting"
Sen. Davis Bean of the Swamp Party speaks informally to a group of party senators about low attendance outside the Chesterfield Smith room after the Senate meeting on Tuesday night.
Sample ballot page from the Student Senate presentation on elections.
