The second Government of Student Body Senate meeting of this term was Wednesday, April 17, 2013. Last week, April 10, new GSB senators and the Executive Cabinet were seated, and this week the senators were seated into the various GSB committees they will serve on.

Senators are nominated to be seated in a committee and then, depending on how many nominees there are, there is either a lot or little debate by the senate.

Whether or not there are contests for a seat, there is always discussion and a vote to decide if the nominees are a good fit for whichever committee they are nominated for.

The first committee that was seated was Rules Committee. There were five openings, and six nominees.

The Rules Committee is lead by Speaker of the Senate, Gabby Williams, and Vice Speaker of the Senate, Barry Snell. Rules goes through all of the GSB Senate bylaws and new legislation to make sure rules are not being broken. 

Previous members describe it as being dry and tedious.

Gage Kensler, former Speaker of the Senate and former Chair of the Rules Committee, was the first senator to be seated on the committee. Mike Kaufmann, a returning senator, and Scott Broady, a new senator, were the next two seated.

Trevor Lund was the fourth seated, and Spencer Peterson was the fifth.

The next committee seated was the Finance Committee. The Finance Committee is lead by Finance Director Daniel Rediske.

There were four spots to fill, and four nominations. Rather than debate, there was a lot of discussion lead by Rediske and previous Finance Committee members.

“We need to give this a lot of thought,” Rediske said. “Finance Committee handles approximately 70 percent of legislation that goes through senate.”

After several comments concerning the lack of nominees, Snell reminded the Senate the seats did not have to be filled at that meeting.

“We’re not forced to fill all the blanks,” Snell said. “We can only seat two members and figure the other two out next week.”

After discussion, it was decided that the senators were all a good fit, and were all approved by the Senate.

Returning senator, and former Finance Committee member Matt Herman was one of the senators seated. Nathan Voss, a returning senator, Khayree Fitten, a returning senator and a former Finance Committee member, and Jake Galleger, a freshman in finance and a new senator, took the remaining seats.

The last two committees seated were University Affairs and Public Relations.

Aimee Burch, Phoebe Yetley, David Parkinson, Cecily Rhode, Gabe Walsh, Nate Byro and Adam Daughtery were seated on the Public Relations Committee.

Michael Platenberg, Nick Terhall, Daniel Breitbarth, Casey Ficek, Austin Wolfe and Peter Benzoni were seated on the University Affairs committee.