Candidates debate for open Senate seats

Hotung Caf?© played host last night to a candidate forum for the three recently vacated Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate seats. The candidate forum was followed by a question and answer session about Amendment 3, which would create a conservative culture representative to the Senate with full voting power.

The main issues discussed included the Senate addressing international and national concerns, the justification for the closed Good and Welfare (G&W) session and the proposed conservative culture representative.

There are currently two open Senate seats for the sophomore class and one for the freshman class. The vote will take place today online, and all freshmen and sophomores are eligible to vote.

All of the candidates agreed that declarations on national or international policy should not be a primary concern of the TCU Senate. "Tufts should be the main concern," Jill Friedman said. Saj Pothiawala said the Senate's priority should be to "police Tufts."

The question of the G&W sessions also produced widespread agreement. "Obviously they're important if they're there," Bianca Flores-Wyont said. In addition, Loi To argued that G&W sessions are useful to Senators. "It's just like a jury deliberating," To said. "You don't walk in on a jury deliberating."

The only source of disagreement among the candidates was on the issue of Amendment 3. Several candidates said that conservatives deserve representation on the Senate, but The Primary Source should not serve as the umbrella conservative group. There needs to be a "new conservative organization representing all conservatives on campus," Alex Chassin said.

On the other hand, Yang asked, "Do they really qualify as a culture?" Jeffrey Katzin disagreed, saying there "isn't a clear definition of culture." Another option suggested was allowing for partial representation without voting power.

These objections, as well as others, were addressed during the question and answer session, when five members of the Source, including current Editor-in-Chief Megan Liotta and Editor Emeritus Sam Dangremond, fielded questions specifically about Amendment 3.

Liotta defended the choice of the Source as the umbrella conservative group. The Tufts Republicans "do not represent all conservatives on campus _ they represent Republicans," Liotta said.

In order to explain conservatism as a culture, Dangremond said that conservatism "cherishes the past" but is a "dynamic ideology." Conservatism is a set of "practices that we hold on a personal level," Dangremond said.

The Source would support any group having a culture representative, according to Source News Editor Rob Lichter. "We would support a liberal cultural rep. and a moderate culture rep," Lichter said. Liotta continued, "Every culture that feels that they are marginalized on campus should have a vote."

According to Liotta, some of the goals of the conservative culture representative would be to expand the World Civilizations requirement to include Western civilizations and examine methods of retaining conservative faculty members.

At the end, Elections Board (ELBO) chair Joe Coletti emphasized the need for students to vote. Twenty percent of students are required to vote to make a decision on the referendum, but unless twenty-five percent vote, a two-thirds majority will be required, according to Coletti.

The freshman candidates are William Dunn, Katzin, Flores-Wyont, Naomi Mower, To and Bharat Burman. The sophomore candidates are Chassin, Pothiawala, Friedman, Zijiang (Rodney) Yang and Cartter Evans.