After Monday night’s marathon meeting, the Student Union was thrown into mild disarray when the supposed shoe-in candidate for Union secretary did not garner enough votes for approval. The stunning vote count was followed by a joint admission from the Union’s executive board that it violated of the group’s fledgling constitution.

To understand how the Union of today requires a look back at yesterday’s Union, when now-President Jon Marker began his climb to the top of the body as a Warren Towers representative.

A VACANT SEAT

Since Marker took the reigns of the Union as acting president, following the resignation of then-President Deon Provost in June 2004 for “personal reasons,” he has faced constant turmoil.

Since then, Marker has become the most visible face of the Union not only in an official capacity, but also around campus in a variety of roles.

“I was excited to have been elected to the role of vice president but given the circumstances, I’m willing to work in whatever capacity the General Assembly and student body needs me,” Marker said in an Oct. 8, 2004 issue of The Daily Free Press.

‘GOVERNED BY THIS CONSTITUTION’

When Marker took office in the summer of 2004, the Union’s new constitution was still incomplete and lacked a succession clause that would dictate who would replace a president in the case of resignation or impeachment.

The constitution had been discarded in the spring of 2004 because of infighting and scandal among Union leadership. The Union was also separated from the Programming Council and the Allocations Committee.

Marker served as acting president for the remainder of the summer and into the school year until the General Assembly could vote on whether or not to hold a special election or to leave it up to an Assembly vote.

Marker said at the time that the constitution did not provide clear enough guidelines about the need for special election. The actual constitution was not approved until February 2005, more than six months after Marker took over the acting position.

“This really solidifies the Union’s place,” Marker said in a Feb. 23, 2005 Free Press story. “Now we can keep moving forward. We just wanted to make sure everything works well so we wouldn’t have to change the little things,” he said.

The wording of the constitution was one of the primary points of recent discussions within the executive board and also within the Assembly.

Members of the Union questioned the procedure Marker followed over the summer and fall of 2005 when the Union was without a treasurer and the Assembly was not in session.

Vice President Jonah Goldberg said Sunday that Marker “violated the constitution of the Student Union” when dealing with the Union budget, specifically about funding a mayoral issues forum last fall.

“The constitution is inadequate,” Goldberg said in yesterday’s Free Press. “It’s a work in progress.”

Marker admitted that although his actions were in the interests of the student body, he still breached Article VIII of the constitution.

“All expenditures regarding Student Union initiatives require a simple majority of the General Assembly to become valid,” the constitution states. “All financial forms need the president and treasurer’s signature to be valid.”

“We as the e-board fully acknowledge the right to spend that $2,700 [for the mayoral issues forum and the Help Now account] is not prescribed in the constitution,” Marker said at the meeting, “but we felt at the time as we feel now that it was the right choice to be the advocate for the students.”

The constitution, fraught with the fingerprints of Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore and Marker himself, now seems — as Goldberg aptly put it in an interview Friday — “just a piece of paper,” despite Marker’s initial confidence in it.

At last night’s meeting, an amendment was proposed to clarify control over the Union’s budget, which included various checks on presidential power and procedures for approving transactions when the Assembly is not in session, including over summer break and various vacations throughout the academic year, and also when there is a vacancy on the e-board.

“I agree completely,” Marker said after Monday’s meeting. “I think it would be interesting to go back and look at how the budget was originally written and see the discussions we had a year ago. Clearly no one foresaw these opportunities and travesties we have had to deal with. But now knowing a little better, I think it is a wise decision on the union’s part to deal with these problems promptly.”

CHANGING POSITIONS

–president–

Although Marker naturally assumed the president’s responsibilities after Provost’s resignation, he became a very vocal face of the Union, although he was an unelected leader.

But Marker affirmed a mandate for this year when he more than 50 percent of the student votes.

Marker was also active in the Union in the spring of 2004 when the Union decided to overhaul its previous constitution, also over spending concerns. This prompted Marker to be active in writing the new constitution, ironically in question for similar reasons.

“It was a different union with different rules,” Marker said after the meeting. “I also think the money spent was very different … Being in both situations, I felt there was much more open discussion in this situation and therefore many more options proposed. My freshman year I felt it was a witch hunt all the way.”

–Treasurer–

After working together for almost a year, Marker and the Union also dealt with the embarrassing loss of Treasurer Marc Weber, who resigned for “personal reasons” around the time of an investigation by the Office of Judicial Affairs into allegations that he was drinking underage.

The Union constitution dictates that any student in poor judicial standing cannot hold an executive board decision on the Union.

This left the Union without a treasurer until October, and prompted a series of questionable financial decisions by Marker that led to the current debate about Marker’s ability to faithfully lead the Union.

Although there were other components involved, Marker said the search for a treasurer contributed to the complicated beginning of the semester last fall, including the lack of an Assembly meeting until Oct. 10.

Marker reviewed more than 10 candidates for the position, and in the end, he recommended College of Communication junior Caroline Cahill for the position in October and was approved by the General Assembly shortly afterwards.

–Secretary–

Most recently, the Union was faced with the surprise resignation of their secretary, Junquera, at the first Union meeting of this semester.

Marker said he did not know about Junquera’s decision until the afternoon before the meeting.

“I’m aiming to have a new secretary by the time we win the Bean Pot,” Marker told the Free Press last week. “In the past, we had 11 people apply for the Vice President position and 14 people for the Treasurer position, so I know there will be people interested.”

Marker told the Assembly last night that he had received two “extremely qualified” applicants for the position of which he chose College of Arts and Sciences freshman Megan Castellano.

Her nomination was thoroughly questioned and ultimately unsuccessful as Assembly members said they were not afforded enough advanced notice of the nomination and enough information about the candidate.

The vote count (10 for, none against, with 11 abstentions), did not meet the necessary majority to confirm the nominee.

As a result, the Assembly was forced to consider operating for the rest of the semester without a secretary.

“I think that I definitely respect the Assembly’s decision there and I look forward to any more applicants in the future and I hope to come in with a candidate at the next meeting,” Marker said.

‘TAKE MY WORD FOR IT’

As the Union looks to the rest of the semester, it is looking at more than three months without a secretary, a new committee to analyze problems with the constitution and the stigma of the e-board that broke their own rules.

When asked why they should trust the executive board in the future, Vice President Jonah Goldberg offered a terse response.

“You can only take my word for it,” he replied.

The executive board’s word has a long road ahead of it if the members intend to change the view of the Union and allowing the committees to continue to meet with administration and eventually make changes that can be seen throughout the university and the student body.

Former executive board member Mike Meyers brought up the possibility of utilizing the removal clause of the constitution to investigate any breaches that could warrant impeachment.

Meyers did not make a motion, but his idea sparked discussion about creating a committee to clarify the constitution.

The Union’s inaction on the removal clause and its acceptance of Goldberg’s word, shows that the General Assembly trusts its leadership, although they indicated that reforms were necessary.

With the Union bogged down by a, unanticipated void at the Secretary position and a weak constitution, their ambitious agenda laid out by Marker earlier in the year seems further and further from reach. To salvage any chance at making strides for the students, Marker has begun to look within the Union at the relationship between members.

“There’s a lack of communication,” he said in a Dec. 6 issue of the Free Press. “I think it’s getting better though. Our network is expanding. It’s still not perfect, but we also have a large campus. We’re trying to tackle the everyday, just getting out and asking everyone about everything.”

Still, the success of the Union and the reputation of the executive board and Marker depend on what the Union accomplishes in the next three months.

“I think we need to judge the Union solely on what it is,” he said Dec. 6. “[It went] from a Union with no constitution, to a Union with students meeting with every top administrator at BU. Our opinions are respected and we’re involved in policy making that comes from that. But we certainly have a long way to go.”