The Student Bar Association received additional funding from GW Law to resolve student organization budget deficits and moved to withdraw a contentious bill from the agenda at a meeting Tuesday night.
SBA President Cherissa Lindsay said GW Law Dean Dayna Bowen Matthew gave the SBA $10,000 as a “president discretion fund” to supplement the executive branch’s budget and support student organizations whose budgets are currently in a financial deficit because of this year’s limited SBA funds. The funding comes after the SBA’s continued attempts this year to secure additional funding from GW Law Associate Dean of Students Jason Belk, who senators said would only add money to their professional development fund if they restricted the types of events eligible for reimbursement through the ad-hoc budget.
Lindsay said a portion of Matthew’s financial contribution will go towards the GW Law Softball Club, the Human Rights Initiative, GW Defenders and The First Generation Professionals’ budgets to bring them out of budget debt. She said the money will be split between student organizations and the executive branch.
“It’s been definitely a hard, hard year trying to get money from the deans, but this gets some,” Lindsay said. “It doesn’t cover everything, but it is a start.”
This year was the first time the SBA operated without a surplus budget of funds leftover from unused funds during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving the law school student governing body with a limited budget to allocate to student groups and the executive branch last semester.
SBA Vice President of Finance Amanda Hichez said the SBA is in a “way better position” financially for the next academic year. Hichez said this money will help the SBA allocate funds to the executive branch and student organizations next year, as they will have money remaining from this spring semester.
Lindsay said SBA Vice President of Programming Aria Charles is working on organizing this year’s Barristers’ Ball, a formal end of year event for GW Law students, which will likely be held on March 14 or 15. She said Belk has “a source” who can get the SBA a discount on the event’s venue, which the body has not yet announced.
The SBA Senate passed the Organizational Disclosure and Recusal Act, which calls for SBA senators to disclose their positions on the executive boards of other student organizations within 48 hours of their election confirmation into the body. SBA Sen. Tyra Satchell, who sponsored the act, said SBA senators are still encouraged to advocate for their organizations but cannot vote on funding or disciplinary actions for any bills that “solely” affect funding for their organization .
“It doesn’t mean that you cannot advocate, doesn’t mean you cannot caucus or canvas for people to support your organization but just to mitigate the self interest and the conflicts of interest that may come up,” Hatchell said.
SBA Sen. Sammy Marks, who wrote the Election Administration Act, said he withdrew the legislation from the agenda before the start of the meeting because he was not fully informed on how “contentious” the bill was. The proposed act would amend the SBA election guidelines to require all candidates for SBA’s president and executive vice president to resign from executive board positions in student organizations prior to the election period.
Prior to Tuesday’s meeting, SBA Sen. Marcella Rubini sent an email to the SBA Senate urging senators to vote to strike the section of the bill requiring candidates’ resignation from executive positions. She said the rule would force current senators running for president or vice president to resign from their current positions, leaving vacancies that would be “catastrophic” to the body.
“Logically, we want student leaders to run the largest organization at our school, so we should incentivize those people, not discourage them by requiring that candidates resign from any and all executive board positions,” Rubini said in an email.
SBA Sen. Darrell Black, who chairs the SBA Student Life Committee, motioned to send the act back to committee for further discussion, which the SBA Senate approved by unanimous consent.
Marks said in the future he will conduct more research prior to presenting bills to the body but hopes SBA senators will “come talk” with him if they have issues with proposed legislation.
“I think some of us need to rethink about what are we here for because I’ve gotten the feeling, and especially after talking to other people who are also first years, that SBA is more about politics than it is about actually helping people,” Marks said.
The SBA Senate unanimously approved an act to confirm the election schedule for the upcoming SBA election period starting in February. The Spring Semester Calendar Act details registration deadlines for candidates and the date for the election of SBA president and executive vice president on Feb. 25 from 8 a.m to 8 p.m.
The SBA Senate also passed the spring meeting calendar, outlining bimonthly meetings until April 8.
The SBA Senate passed four ad-hoc bills to allocate additional funds to student organizations. Senators approved a bill to allocate $500 to the GW Law Boxing Club, an organization founded last semester, for gloves and wraps.
The SBA Senate also approved an ad-hoc bill for $277 to cover flight expenses for a student to attend the American Bar Association Midyear Tax Meeting in Los Angeles, California.
SBA Senators funded $250 to cover a student’s registration fee for an America Bar Association event in Virginia and approved the Veteran Law Student Association’s request of $875 to cover expenses for events they held in the fall semester.
The next SBA meeting will be held Tuesday, Feb. 4 at 8:50 p.m. in the LLC.
Molly St. Clair contributed reporting.