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In a nearly five-hour meeting, USG passed a vote of no confidence against the UConn Board of Trustees as a sign of their disapproval for the recent 6 percent tuition increase.
A vote of no confidence simply means that USG believes that the Board of Trustees ignored the student voice when they chose a lower tuition increase than USG recommended, said Samuel Greenberg, a 7th-semester political science and journalism double major and member of the External Affairs committee
USG will send a formal letter to the board notifying them of their decision.
USG favored an 8.6 percent tuition increase, and felt that the Board of Trustees ignored its recommendation.
They also spent more than half of the meeting discussing a vote of no confidence against Gov. M. Jodi Rell, which was eventually voted down.
Seamus Keating, chairperson of USG's External Affairs committee and an 8th-semester political science major, proposed the votes of no confidence against Rell and the board because he thought she had done "back-door" deals to sway the board.
Funding Board Chair Jared Ashmore said that Rell didn't want to increase tuition at all, and the 6 percent was a compromise. The trustees were "strong-armed" by Rell because she has the ability to cut UConn's funding, Ashmore said.
"What really is at issue here is the way that it [Rell's alleged board lobbying] occurred," Keating said. "She truly abused her power."
According to Speaker of the Senate Corey Schmitt, the two student trustees opposed the 6 percent increase, while all of the other members approved it.
"There's lots of smoke, and someone's holding a gun here," Greenberg said.
Comptroller Jason Ortiz pointed out that Rell isn't in a position to retaliate by decreasing UConn's funding, and USG members should not be afraid to send her a message of disapproval.
Some senators thought that there was no evidence showing them Rell had lobbied the Trustees to vote her way, and Keating was relying on third-party information.
When pressed by senators, he did not identify where he got his information on Rell's lobbying from.
"Everything here is hearsay," said Krista D'Amelio, a CLAS senator. "Unless you're physically there in those meetings, you don't know what occurs."
Some USG senators also felt that Keating's motion of "no confidence" was brought on by discontent with the board's decision and that those in agreement were looking for someone to blame. The lack of physical evidence left Keating's proposal on shaky ground.
Keating said that he respects USG's disapproval of the vote of "no confidence" against Rell, and said he would not press the issue further.
There was a long debate as to whether or not the vote of no confidence against Rell was a disapproval of her handling of the situation, or of her "job performance" as a whole. This distinction led some members to fear that Rell would receive an unclear message if the vote passed. This confusion led to a failure to pass the motion.
"It came down to who's more to blame," Brien Buckman, a senator and a 2nd-semester political science and philosophy double major, said about the vote of no confidence motions against Rell and the Trustees.
Buckman felt that the trustees were the ones who truly made the decision to favor the 6 percent increase, which went against the recommendations of both UConn President Michael Hogan and USG members.
"We pay the government, we pay the Board of Trustees; this is our money," said Meghan Perrone, chair of the Safety Advisory Committee and an 8th-semester sociology major.
"I feel that the Board of Trustees seriously violated their charge to represent the stakeholders of the university," Keating said. "I am pleased with the vote on the Board of Trustees."
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