Student Action announced 18 candidates Thursday for this year’s ASUC election — a season in which CalSERVE is running more candidates than it has in recent history and SQUELCH! is running its first fully nonsatirical slate.
Though the party’s slogan is “Every Student, Every Year,” Student Action has historically run candidates with strong connections to the Jewish community, engineering communities and Greek communities.
Student Action’s candidates are Norvan Berkezyan, Kayon Brantley, James Chi, Katherine Chung, Henry Grunzweig, Haley Lee, Jacob Mansour, Sahil Pandya, Liza Raffi, Kyle Shackleford, Lauren Week, Eric Wu, Nicolas Jaber, Karen Lee, Andrew Newbill, Pavan Upadhyayula, Courtney Chow and Quinn Shen.
The party has historically dominated ASUC Senate races, winning 11 senate seats in 2012 to CalSERVE’s six and SQUELCH!’s one. The other two seats went to one independent candidate and one candidate running with the Cooperative Movement, precisely matching the makeup of the previous two senates.
Student Action said in a statement that the nominees were chosen from a range of student communities on campus and that “their senate goals range from enhancing the quality of off-campus living, to unifying philanthropic groups and organizations, to expanding the presence of the ASUC in students’ academic lives.”
Though Student Action has historically run a full slate of 20 candidates, this year, the party has chosen the 18 that it felt best represented its interests, said Party Signatory Joey Lam.
Even with the increased competition, Lam said Student Action will not change its campaign strategies.
“We’re focused on us,” Lam said. “It’s not fruitful to worry about what the other parties are doing. If my candidates do their jobs in the way that they should and aim to connect with everyone in the community as they should, then we will be fine.”
Jason Bellet, SQUELCH’s candidate for president and a current ASUC senator, said he saw the increased competition as positive for campus political culture.
“Expanded SQUELCH! and CalSERVE slates will hopefully ensure that no single party will hold a majority of the ASUC Senate,” he said in an email. “The hope is that senators with different opinions will have to reconcile their beliefs with one another, promoting a more cooperative student government to cohesively serve the needs of students.”
Lam emphasized that Student Action does not single out any particular groups.
“We’ve never run our campaigns in that sort of way,” Lam said. “We have 18 candidates from all sorts of communities — our commitment to represent all students on campus stands, as always.”
Lauren Week, one of the candidates and a junior studying political economy and legal studies, said she aims to secure practice space for dance communities during the reconstruction of Lower Sproul and to create connections between Cal Athletics and student groups as part of her spirit platform. Week noted that she is the head of philanthropy for the Panhellenic Council and a campus ambassador.
“My last platform of increasing security and safety in the residence halls is also incredibly important to me as it is something that personally affected me and many peers during my residence hall living experience,” Week said in an email.
Nicolas Jaber, another candidate and a freshman philosophy and economics double major, cited “unprecedented fiscal and logistical constraints” as his motivations for running for senate and said that his pragmatic approach will allow him to represent communities equally.
Jaber’s main platform proposal is to enable students to use their meal points at local restaurants and businesses.
“This proposal is common sense,” Jaber said in an email. “Cal Debit Cards already have purchasing power with many dining fixtures on and around our campus. The next reasonable step is to open what is now a closed system, affording students the highest level of choice possible.”
The student government elections will be held April 9, 10 and 11.
DJ Sellarole covers the ASUC. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @DJSellarole.