No clubs were chartered, de-chartered or recognized at the Feb. 2 Student Union Senate meeting. Union Vice President Krupa Sourirajan ’23 swore in four new senators who were elected in the recent winter 2021 elections.

The Senate announced that there will be a “Meet the Union” event on Friday, Feb. 12 in Fellows Gardens from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Attendees will be able to meet with Student Union members, who will also be handing out free face masks.

Allocations Board representative Emma Fiesinger ’23 then joined the meeting to inform the Senate of an A-Board member who had been put on probation for violating A-Board rules. According to Fiesinger, A-Board Representative Jacob Zackai ’24 was found to have been rearranging the board’s voting schedules to prioritize clubs he was affiliated with, as well as voting on those clubs’ funding. Zackai did this during fall 2020’s Marathon, the biannual process through which chartered clubs are allocated funding for the upcoming semester.

Fiesinger said Zackai’s actions were “serious but reversible” and that A-Board was “able to undo any damage he might have caused.” The A-Board debated on moving to impeach Zakai, but ultimately decided to be lenient because fall 2020 was his first of three semesters on A-Board.

Fiesinger said that A-Board “never found any outright suspicious allocations to clubs he was biased towards.” She also said that Zakai had already apologized for his actions and admitted wrongdoing. Fiesinger informed the Senate that Zakai had been put on probation until March 20 of this year, during which time he will not be allowed to vote but must still attend meetings and hold supervised office hours. Zakai agreed to the terms of his punishment and will be able to vote by this semester’s Marathon, held in late March.

Moving onto other business, Sen. Asher Brenner ’24 of the Rules Committee put forward an amendment that he said would “strengthen voting policy.” The amendment would require a two-thirds majority vote for passing any Senate Money Resolutions. Brenner emphasized that the amendment was not a political statement and was not in response to any particular event. Brenner explained that while there have not been any previous issues with spending, he wants the Senate to show more “responsibility in spending.” Sen. Adian Vinograd ’23 responded that because there had been no problems with spending in the Senate, the amendment is unnecessary. “It’s based on my personal opinion,” said Brenner. “This is just for the future.”

The Senate will vote on the amendment next week. The Senate also voted unanimously to approve all new committee heads.