SA Senate, the Reflector Editorial Board, and the SA President

The SA Senate does its work. The Reflector Editorial Board did not in its Editorial in Friday, February 11th's edition of the Reflector or in the front page article. In accordance with such, below is my response as a Graduate Student Senator.

Dear Reflector Editorial Board:

FYI, the SA Senate had quorum the whole night. Not that the Reflector or the SA President would check the Constitution as the SA Attorney General Seth Robbins did or the Senate records for the night. Or that any of you were in attendance yourself, just one Reflector writer who did not bother presenting the full story.

The Senate, which passed badly need SA Executive and Homecoming election reform last fall, had one of its best debates of the year concerning Senate size.

A little credible reporting would have discovered that the 2005-2006 SA Senate has has had one of the best attendance records of the last several years. And that, of those Senators absent, all but a couple had class at the time or were sick which would have been discovered had adequate reporting been done.

And as for as the SA President goes, Cabinet had the same percentage of members at the State of the Student Association as Senate did. Cabinet and the office of SA President Jon David Cole were also in charge of advertising and promoting the event to the student body. And the Reflector by virtue of being the "student" newspaper. Yet zero to maybe three students outside of Cabinet, Exec, or Senate attended. That was not reported either if you are taking score.

And lastly, the only real reason the SA President was upset was because he didn't get to speak until after 8 because the Senate, as is their job, was debating a bill. Simply put, the SA President was upset b/c he did not get the moment in the sun he had hoped for.

And for the record, the SA President never asked once to speak earlier in the event (for instance, after Dr. Lee spoke) or asked to have the State of the SA moved to another time.

You, the Reflector Editorial Board, say the SA Senate needs to step up, yet your actions in reporting on the SA Senate have not even come close to comparing to your half information, high horse attack on the Senate. In fact, Vice-President Cory Carter's response was buried in the middle of the second page of the opinion section and a combined response from 12 members of the Senate including myself was not even printed. Apparently, the importance you placed on the SA Senate disappeared by the next edition.

Lastly, you, the Reflector Editorial Board, say cutting the number of Senators is a good thing. Yet you really do not explain why. In fact, there will be less Senators representing the students in 2006-2007 than before the bill passed. And in all likelihood, the more popular people, not necessarily the best Senators, are going to be elected. So Senators who have not missed a meeting this year might not have been elected under the new legislation which must be approved by Constitutional amendment on election day February 21st by the student body.