The Missouri Students Association Senate elected Budget Committee Chairman Jacob Sloan as the new senate speaker Wednesday night.
“I’m really excited that I got senate speaker,” Sloan said. “It’s a big deal, and I’m glad it finally came through.”
The Senate had to participate in a run-off vote after Sloan initially tied for votes with Academic Affairs Committee Chairman Everett Bruer.
During the first vote, the two were tied 14-14. One senator abstained and one voted for current Senate Speaker Evan Wood as a write-in candidate.
According to the bylaws, if a vote results in a tie, a runoff between the top two nominees should occur. As Wood’s name was submitted during the vote, he unintentionally became a third-party nominee. There was much confusion over the correct procedure for Senate Speaker elections.
“I’m frustrated in retrospect because Evan didn’t know if he had a vote, so he said he would only vote if there was a tie,” Operations Committee Chairman Justin Mohn said.
Wood said he never had any intention to run for the position again but that he would have under certain circumstances.
“In the event that no one was going to run, I would have stepped in,” Woods said.
Sloan won after a second vote with a tally of 16-14 in his favor. Thirty out of 57 senators were present for the vote. Mohn said this outcome was foreseeable.
“I think the race would’ve been close either way,” Mohn said.
Sloan said he officially decided to run for senate speaker a few weeks ago.
“I thought about running for a while, and I was on and off about it,” Sloan said.
To be eligible to run for senate speaker, the candidate must have been a senator or an officer of the senate for at least two semesters, Wood said. They also needed to be current senators.
“You basically need two semesters of experience,” Wood said.
Sloan has been a senator for nearly two years, most of this time spent as a member of the budget committee.
Sloan said his major goal as senate speaker was to follow Wood and previous MSA President Tim Noce’s efforts in lobbying for a voting student curator.
“The under-appreciation of the student curator is an issue,” Sloan said.
Secretary of Auxiliaries Matt Sheppard spoke on behalf of Sloan at the Senate meeting. He said Sloan has executive experience and will do an amazing job.
“I’ve learned a lot from working with faculty members, and I want to create a system where committees communicate more with the faculty,” Sloan said.
Although his term as senate speaker has ended, Wood said he still has a seat on the Senate. He doesn’t know what to do with that seat yet, he said.
“I don’t want to encroach on the new senate speaker,” Wood said. “I don’t know what to I still have projects in progress, and I still want to work on them through Senate or some other means.”
Sloan said he is going to take his new role seriously.
“I am going to be very passionate about the position,” Sloan said.