Formal warning issued to AS President by senate

Internal discord sparked within Associated Students by College Readership Program

Kaia Hubbard / Associate Editor / The USD Vista

October 10: The First Meeting

Three consecutive gavel sounds reverberated through Solomon Hall Thursday as the weekly Associated Students (AS) meeting was called to order. 

What began as a conversation about the College Readership Program (CRP), which historically provided on-campus newspapers to students at no cost, quickly revealed a larger debate about process and representation, and ultimately the relationship between the legislative and Executive Branches of AS at USD. 

Last spring, the CRP was in full swing. But when Toreros returned to school this fall, stands once filled by USA Today, The New York Times, and The Union Tribune sat empty. While some students wondered where the papers had gone, and others neglected to notice, the entirety of the senate remained uninformed about the decision to halt the funding of the CRP, which was made by a committee of executive members during the summer. Students and senators alike had questions.

Senior Luke Garrett, Editor-in-Chief of The USD Vista, inquired about the status of the newspapers and the CRP as Thursday’s AS meeting was opened to discussion. AS President, Natasha Salgado, spoke to the current state of the CRP, informing the room of the decision to pause the allocation of funding for on-campus newspapers. Salgado also explained that the position of finance chair awaited new appointmenship, which delayed the process of voting whether to fund the CRP. 

“As of right now because the CRP has not officially been terminated we cannot really take anything away,” Salgado said. “We can’t really take anything away that belongs to the CRP because it hasn’t been formally voted upon. Because it hasn’t been formally voted upon we can’t necessarily say that the CRP has ended because it hasn’t been received by the senate and hasn’t exactly been removed.”

Though Salgado gave reasoning for the delayed vote, some senators were not satisfied. Sophomore Rowan Parmenter, a senator of the Alcala Vistas, stressed the timeliness of this issue. 

“It is already Oct. 10 and we are funding everything else,” Parmenter said. “The CRP is the one thing that has been caught in limbo. We haven’t ended but there aren’t physical newspapers on campus. We are basically lying to students saying that we haven’t ended it because we aren’t funding it.”

Further, Parmenter mentioned his duty, along with his senator counterparts, to be in the know about issues concerning their constituents, and to use their power to check the Executive Branch. 

“I realized we’re having the budget issues,” Parmenter said. “It is our duty as senate to make sure we are keeping a check on what’s going on and this is something that has basically been taken out of our hands.”

And it didn’t take long for Parmenter to take the issue into his own hands. 

“I move to fund the College Readership Program through the Senate Reserves,” Parmenter said. 

Sophomore Charlie Young, also a senator of the Alcala Vistas, seconded Parmenter’s motion. 

“This seems to be the only major thing on campus that has been cut,” Young said. “It is very important that we at least uphold our responsibilities to students to keep them informed on current events to continue conversation and dialogue on campus on political and social current events – that’s the purpose of college.”

After some discussion, Senior Tyler Warren, Speaker of the Senate, called the senate to vote on Parmenter’s motion to fund the CRP through the Senate Reserves. The motion failed. 

However, the failure of Parmenter’s motion did not deter Young to take further action. 

“I move to place the question of funding the physical newspapers on campus to a campus-wide referendum,” Young said. “I don’t see how a senator could vote no on this.”

The senate voted unanimously for the referendum. 

At the conclusion of the AS meeting, around 2 p.m., President Salgado declined to comment on the College Readership Program.

October 10: The Presidential Veto

Three hours later, Salgado issued a veto on the senate’s unanimously-voted referendum. 

“I just want to make sure that this veto is also a form of check in a way of how things need to be done accordingly in AS,” Salgado said. “Right now (the veto) is just to buy time. I’m giving them time.”

Some might have questioned the decision to veto the referendum following a unanimous decision by the senate, but Salgado knew her veto would not change the senate’s position. 

“I’m assuming the veto will be overridden,” Salgado said. 

In response to Salgado’s veto, Warren called an emergency senate meeting, scheduled for the following Monday. 

October 15: Emergency Senate Meeting

Three strikes of the gavel again sounded as the emergency Senate meeting was called. 

AS President Natasha Salgado was a no show, delivering an email instead. After looking over her email, some senators took to the floor to disagree with portions of the email. 

Senator Young mentioned the number of students polled and Salgado’s numerous claims. In the previous meeting, President Salgado said that over 200 students responded to an unofficial poll to do away with on-campus news. However, in her email, she revised this number and explained that there were only 94 responses from a poll sent out to hand-selected students. 

Though Salgado wasn’t there, an advocate of hers was in attendance. Panhellenic President, Kate Burnite, represents students involved in sorority life. While she’s able to attend meetings, she cannot vote. Both Burnite and Salgado argued for better representation of the students. 

“You make the argument that you know your campus community well enough that you think they would be appreciative of this campus referendum,” Burnite said. “Is there a point at which senators know their constituents well enough that they don’t necessarily have to have them directly vote, and instead you as representatives will have communicated enough with your constituency to the point that you are able to make the vote for them?”

Speaker of the Senate, Warren, responded to Burnite’s observations. 

“As a point of clarification the referendum was directed to counteract data that was supposedly collected that was not representative of the entire student body,” Warren said. “We felt the most unbiased and clear way to find out what the actually students wanted was through a referendum.”

When it was time to vote, Salgado’s veto was overridden by a unanimous decision. The referendum will put this issue of free on-campus newspaper to a vote before the general student body.

After overriding the veto, the Senate took action to finance the free newspapers in the meantime. Young proposed a way to ensure that physical copies of the newspapers would be available for students on campus. Resolution 2018-2 demands that the College Readership Program be funded until the students can vote on the issue, and also asks that the Finance Committee meet to approve or disapprove the funding of the program long term. 

Young further justified his motion to enact the resolution and explained his commitment to remaining transparent.

“Last year in our Senate budget we approved the funding for the print newspapers, with the understanding that they would be made available to students through the year,” Young said. “That so far has not happened. It’s only fair that, along with all the other programs, that it be continued to be funded until the finance meeting is held.”

The Senate voted unanimously for the resolution to finance free newspapers on campus until AS makes a decision based on the information from the student-body polling. 

But they didn’t stop there. In a rare move, the Senate voted for the first time in recent history to censure the president, with two senators dissenting and one abstaining. 

“A censure is a formal warning stating that we are displeased with an action, as well as if we believe that there has been an organizational rule or value that has been broken, it will be addressed in that later as a warning,” Warren said. “And if in the future that happens again, then we will not hesitate to take the appropriate performance review action.”

Ultimately, the decision to censure came down to the claimed misuse of the presidential veto. 

“There have multiple narratives going on surrounding why she vetoed,” Young said. “One in which she shared with me Friday was to serve as a check to the individuals in Senate and Senate as a whole. I am completely opposed to the notion that a presidential veto can be used in this fashion. We have by-laws within Senate that clearly state how the progress review system works. Using the veto is not, in my understanding, the appropriate or proper term to discuss and raise issues with members of Senate or with members of the Executive Branch. ” 

In her email received at the beginning of the emergency meeting, Salgado spoke to why she vetoed.

“To clarify, my decision to veto the motion was based on the expectation of senators in being able to represent their constituencies, and in having this go to a campus referendum on the College Readership Program demonstrates the importance of having senators be in constant conversations with their constituencies in order to move forward with presented issues,” Salgado said.

However, Young disagreed with the nature of this claim.

“We decided on Senate that we needed more input from our constituents to make this decision – her veto directly prevented us from receiving that,” Young said. “If we want to take it at face value, that has to inherently be against our core value of representing our students, and using their input to decide our actions.”

The gavel sounded and the emergency Senate meeting came to a close. 

After The USD Vista’s repeated attempts to contact the president, Salgado commented on the claimed abuse of power, but mentioned it wasn’t her own. 

“I did not veto the subject of the motion but rather the process by which it would be conducted,” Salgado said. “To hear that this action was an abuse of power undermines the constitutional check the role of being President is granted… I hold no personal reaction or emotion toward the decisions that took place within our AS Senate, but our student community does. There is frustration and quite frankly disappointment, in the manner in which the Senate has conducted itself.”

The future of the College Readership Program is unclear, but it has surely brought to light tension between the Legislative and Executive Branches of Associated Students – the tension which lies in the Senate’s concern for Salgado’s use of power, and in her questioning of the senators’ ability to accurately represent their constituents.