AS Senate Recap – 5/7/25

text by News Director

13 May, 2025

This recap first appeared in the May 13 edition of the KCSB News Weekly Newsletter. 

The AS Senate is a group of elected student representatives which serves as the policy-making body of Associated Students. Every Wednesday at 6:30 PM, the AS Senate convenes to pass bills and resolutions, hear reports from Boards, Committees, and Units (BCUs), and hold public forum. 

KCSB’s Joyce Chi summarizes their most recent meeting on May 7, 2025.

The Senate approves funding for a program that will provide free Narcan in university-owned housing.

FYI: The Spring General Election has again been extended to this Thursday 5/15 at 4 PM. Cast your ballot at vote.as.ucsb.edu.

A major election shakeup: The AS Judicial Council has disqualified Senator Dan Siddiqui from running for President and for any other executive office position in the future. The Judicial Council said they heard over 10 hours of testimony and deliberated for more than 20 hours before making their decision. 

Siddiqui said he was working on appealing the decision, but declined to comment further. Attorney General Eric Carlson, whose office launched the membership rights violation cases, commended the Council for their work and thorough scrutiny. 

 

In their decision, the Judicial Council cited a meeting between Siddiqui and a student who wanted to run for president too in which he convinced that student to drop their bid “in exchange for a cabinet position.” 

Also, there’s the issue of that “repercussions” text. You’ll recall that when Senator MingJun Zha made a motion to essentially allow for more choice candidates in the election, he received a text from Siddiqui referring to “repercussions from what you’re doing.” Zha said he worried Siddiqui could threaten the Global Gaucho Commission, an international student advocacy group Zha’s heavily involved with. Siddiqui, for his part, has maintained that he was referring to repercussions on interpersonal relationships among Senators amid tensions related to an AS policy debate. As the Senate’s first president pro tempore, the Council said it was Siddiqui’s responsibility to facilitate debate and discussion, and his text in this case was “an inappropriate use of influence.”

Votes cast for Siddiqui must be excluded from the final tally, the Council instructed, leaving Le Anh Metzger as the only presidential candidate for now. Siddiqui is now barred from holding any executive office position at UCSB going forward, though he’s still eligible for an appointed or elected AS position. 

Siddiqui has previously questioned the timing of the membership rights investigations, since all this came out during his campaign. In their decision, Chair Krishna Thaker maintained the Council has “no personal or political motive.” Carlson told us earlier before the most recent decision, “this is not a witch hunt. The evidence is there.”

Thaker also acknowledged that some of the membership rights violations involve other AS elected officials, but explained that only Siddiqui’s involvement was being addressed because the initial petition filed was solely against him. “This ruling does not indicate that any other individual implicated in the charges will not be held responsible,” Thaker wrote, “but instead that we have not yet received such a petition naming them.”

Other recommendations from the Judicial Council: 

  • Whenever the Senate wants to suspend a Standing Policy going forward, whoever’s chairing the Senate should read out the entire Standing Policy for the record. 
  • The Senate should amend Standing Policy 10, which bans candidates from proxying for Senators, to clarify that this ban is in place from when candidacy declarations open up until the election cycle ends.

The Senate had previously suspended Policy 10, while Policy 15 (conflict of interest) came into question when the Senate voted on allowing choice candidates past the declaration deadline.

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What the Senate passed:

  • Registered campus organizations (RCOs) may soon no longer have to first pay out of pocket for travel. A resolution by Senators Enri Lala and Dalia Gerson directs AS staffers to see what requirements are needed for RCOs to access travel sites and training. RCOs have to front the money for travel expenses before getting reimbursed, and this resolution would essentially cut that middle step out.
  • Non-lock-in fee BCUs would have to be reapproved every three years. A proposed constitutional amendment by Senators MingJun Zha and Carly Lankarani (for next spring!) will require new boards, committees/commissions, and units (BCUs) to first be approved by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. After their first year, they’d then go through a budget process; after three years, the Senate can reapprove this non-lock-in fee BCU for another three years in perpetuity. (All this, by the way, would not apply to BCUs that do have a lock-in fee.)
  • The Senate urged UCSB to honor the Armenian Genocide. Senators Noura Elkhatib, Leiya Kadah, and Nadine Malhis collaborated with students like Lilian Mkrtoumian of the Armenian Student Association to call on administrators to recognize April 24 as Armenian Genocide Remembranec Day and April as Armenian Heritage Month.
  • Funding has been secured for free Narcan in university-owned housing starting this fall. The Senate approved the transfer of $12,000 for the proposal and a related bill to codify its oversight as a responsibility for a position within the Public and Mental Health Commission. Read more about the project to bring opioid overdose reversal medication to student housing in last week’s Senate Recap.
  • The Senate declared support for the Black Heritage Cultural Experience, a 10 day-long trip for Black students to visit sites related to slavery, Jim Crow, Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement. The resolution by Senators Alexa Butler and Eemaan Wahidullah calls on UCSB and AS administration to “commit to the long-term sustainability” of the program.

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What the Senate tabled for one week:

  • A bill to update Raices de mi Tierra’s legal code to make sure it’s compliant with AS legal code. The bill by Senators Butler and Alejandra Martinez makes edits like having a maximum of two chairs rather than the previous four. AS Chief Compliance Officer David Jr. Sim had previously outlined the compliance issues back in April.
  • An omnibus finance bill. One part of this legislation by Senators Taylor Iden and Zha requires the Senate to first sign off job listings before they’re sent to UCSB admin for approval. Another says that any group seeking project funding has to follow the funding guidelines under the High Impact Project Framework in legal code. The last change pushes the timeline back for reports and memorandums of understanding on student fee usage.

Access this week’s AS Senate agenda (which includes their bills and resolutions) using your student email here. You can see last week’s agenda here. Meetings are typically held each week at the Flying A Room of the University Center (Main Floor) throughout the quarter, aside from Week 10. You can also watch live and past meetings on the ASUCSB YouTube here. 

Find all our previous Senate Recaps here.

Posted in News, AS Senate