USG met virtually Tuesday to approve the election code and budget allocations for the spring semester. 

Vice president Michelle Lu announced that meetings for the remainder of the semester will be held virtually and that students hoping to speak during the open forum or discussion periods at future meetings will have to submit a digital form describing their statement.

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“We appreciate that senate meetings have served as a space for many to share their concerns with current events, and because of this we have discovered new forums that were needed,” Lu said.

President Divya Jakatdar said the new forums would allow trained University staff to moderate potential hate speech.

The senate then seated senator Coleman Cochran, filling the seat vacated by Emilia Bletsas who resigned two weeks ago. 

“I’m now just really happy that I can continue to contribute to student government,” said Cochran in an interview with the Daily Trojan. “I’m really looking forward to hopping on some projects and working on things that we had talked about during our campaign.”

The senate heard presentations from Lu, chief communications officer Mustafa Ali Khan, Committee on Academic Affairs  chair Kate Ariathurai and senator Isabella Padilla on various projects, including videos explaining the funding process and integrating student ID cards into mobile wallets.

The senate then unanimously approved the elections code for the 2024 USG elections. Chief justice Nivea Krishnan modified the bill based on feedback she received at last week’s meeting to allow students to get credit for attending an elections workshop by watching a recording of it.

Krishnan also announced there would be a special election to fill the seat vacated by senator Andrea Velazquez Sanchez, who resigned last Thursday.

Under the USG bylaws, the seat would ordinarily be filled with a candidate from the last election. However, after filling the seat vacated by former speaker of the senate Bletsas, there were not any candidates who were not elected and wished to fill the seat.

The senate then moved to discussion of SB 143-17, amending the budget for the spring. The bill adjusted funding allocations for different organizations based on funding per student and the fund utilization rates. The bill also took into account the confirmed total funds collected by the annual programming fee students pay at the beginning of the academic year.

The senate ultimately tabled the resolution to allow the chief financial officer, Khalil Daniels, to engage in further discussion with programming assemblies.

Co-executive Director of the Middle Eastern North African Student Assembly, Maideh Orangi, said MENASA had not had the chance to present to the full cabinet and needed an increase in funding for the spring semester to establish itself through event programming.

“Our programming has quadrupled for next semester, [when] most holidays and heritage months for most MENA communities are,” Orangi said. “But groups that have been established for many years, who have budgets almost four times ours, got increases, but we didn’t.”

Additionally, the senate passed an amendment to the USG bylaws, clarifying the selection of assistant directors within the programming department, as well as a bill canceling its Nov. 21 meeting, which fell just before Thanksgiving break.