When initially contacted by the Daily, I declined comment on the failure of the GSB Senate bill to seat Steve Skutnik as election commissioner. This was due to a feeling of compassion on my part, realizing that my doing so would be no more than kicking a man when he was down.

However, after reading the article concerning this matter in the Nov. 30 Daily, I now feel that I must speak up, both to defend myself, and to bring to light several matters related to the issue that the public has been thus far uninformed of.

Skutnik’s qualifications were not the issue here. I will be the first to admit that Steve was very qualified, perhaps even the most qualified person on campus. No, the main issue here was his record, and more to the point, his history of rather emotional and, at times, illogical periods of, to use his words, “unprofessional” conduct.

In fact, no one who has ever had the joy of working with Mr. Skutnik in student government would ever have to resort to “thinly veiled personal attacks.” They need only cite their own experiences. Some of these I did publicly share at the GSB meeting to show that my stance against the bill was not solely of a personal nature.

For example, during the time that I served as the TRA President, Mr. Skutnik was serving at IRHA Vice President. On more than one occasion, Steve, as Chair of the Parliament, engaged others, including myself, in shouting matches in the middle of debates about pressing IRHA business. Furthermore, he often failed to recognize me to speak in fair turn on matters in which I was known to be taking a dissenting stance.

The position of election commissioner is one that brings with it a lot of responsibility and a lot of power. Skutnik is a very emotional person, and has shown time and time again his tendency toward violent spurts of emotional eruptions that are anything but professional. A good example of this was his own behavior in front of the Senate during consideration of his seating bill.

At a time when most candidates would be on their best behavior, Skutnik was yelling and arguing about the selection process undertaken by the Appointments Committee. A good election commissioner must be able to keep his or her cool under pressure; Skutnik showed us all that he could not.

Many of the issues surrounding Mr. Skutnik’s seating bill were in fact completely unrelated to his qualifications. More than one high-level official within the GSB, essentially, tried to strong-arm the Senate into seating Mr. Skutnik. Many of my fellow senators, when I spoke with them, expressed to me that it was their understanding that we had no choice but to pass the bill.

These same GSB leaders had also made it very clear that not seating Mr. Skutnik would mean Senate meetings during Dead Week (something they had been talking about for several weeks anyway) and possibly even meetings during Finals Week. This is very hypocritical, since (even though very few people realize it) GSB founded what has become Dead Week, years and years ago. They did this so that students could have a week to study free of all extracurricular distractions, and have since become the number one violator of the policy, consistently making a habit of meeting during Dead Week.

Also, since the GSB Constitution mandates that certain things be accomplished by the end of the semester, things that cannot be done until after an Election Commissioner is seated, the Senate was warned of a potential constitutional crisis that would occur if the seating bill failed. True as this may have been, the use of these scare tactics was inappropriate and perhaps even malfeasant.

The constitutional crisis has arrived, now taking the form of a suit filed against the GSB Senate in the GSB Supreme Court. But this crisis is not the fault of the Senate alone. The responsibility lies also in part with the Appointments Committee. Although it claims it had been seeking an election commissioner for some 75 days, the truth is that a genuine attempt wasn’t made until the end of October. The fact that Skutnik was the only person to return an application is evidence of the fact that sufficient effort to find a commissioner was not undertaken.

It is my opinion that the Appointments Committee was malfeasant in its failure to take into account the possibility of the Senate refusing to confirm their appointment, and the constitutional ramifications of that possibility. A more diligent Appointments Committee would have planned to send its selection to the Senate soon enough to allow time to select another candidate upon the contingency that became reality Wednesday.

As you can see, there were many more issues surrounding this seating bill than just Steve Skutnik’s qualifications and history in student government. If this is a matter which concerns you I would encourage you to contact your college or residence area senator, and as always I would invite all students to attend our meetings, held at 7 p.m. every Wednesday, usually in the Campanile room of the Memorial Union.

Jonathon Weaver

Senior

History

Off Campus GSB Senator