Jose Gonzalez-Campelo/The Cougar
Over the past few weeks, the Student Government Association found themselves in a spiral of controversies.
Two weeks ago, Sen. Jesus Nieto gave a presentation during a special session with evidence against the Speaker of the Senate Sebastian Ballesteros and Sen. Mohib Awan claiming they were making biased decisions to appoint the chairs of senate committees.
The aftermath of this exposure led Ballesteros to release an official statement acknowledging and apologizing for the decisions he made.
“I acknowledge and apologize for the bias that influenced these appointments,” Ballesteros said in his official statement. “These actions, which occurred early in my tenure were mistakes, and I deeply regret any harm or division they may have caused.”
While Ballesteros accepted that the decisions were biased and ensured they wouldn’t be repeated in the future, he justified his actions by pointing out that the decisions were also based on trust.
He blamed immaturity and a lack of experience and emphasized that he never took advantage of the position or his power.
“When it came to building a team, I was very comfortable with certain people and earned this trust that I can delegate work to them,” Ballesteros said. “We all started the admin with an us vs. them mindset however, ever since April we have all grown together.”
Awan also agreed with Ballesteros that a lot of decisions were based on their relationship with the Speaker and how much initiative an individual was taking to show their work.
He argued that a lot of SGA members were making recommendations and the Speaker of the Senate took them into consideration as well.
“The biases can be viewed from both sides, but we all went through the same fair procedure to become a Chair,” Awan said.
He also emphasized that it wasn’t just Ballesteros’ choice. The senators, who were appointed, went through the voting process in a fair manner and were unanimously chosen.
All the important positions have a two-step procedure where top leadership nominates an candidate and the Senate approves or denies them.
“Everyone went through the full procedure to be appointed, and were put in front of the Senate to get questioned by them,” Awan said. “They got voted in and by more than the 3/4 majority, which shows that the Senate agrees with these people.”
According to Awan, there weren’t many applicants and the candidates who got appointed as Chairs were the only individuals who applied for those committees.
Awan wasn’t present in the special session, but as soon as these events came to light, he released a statement apologizing and announced he would be stepping down from the position, for the time being.
In Ballesteros’ statement, he also mentioned conducting an internal review of Awan’s actions to ensure fairness and consistency while also re-evaluating his own actions.
However, there was no mention of consequences for the Speaker of the Senate even though he was equally involved.
“Sebastian’s grown and I know he put out his apology and means all well, but that was the same thing that I did which is not going to look the same because my statement was put out after,” Awan said. “If we’re speaking ethically, then yeah the Speaker should be held to the same standard as me, and the statement shouldn’t warrant a back off response from the Senate and the legislative leadership.”
According to Ballesteros, he did want to put himself into the internal investigation as well and re-evaluate what kind of a leader he is.
“I wouldn’t go that far to relieve myself of my position because I think, regardless of the mistakes I make, I can always improve,” Ballesteros said. “My goal was always to make it up to people.”
Despite talking about an internal investigation, Awan was released from his duties and his chairmanship was revoked.
Awan found out about this new development during the Senate training session and was never communicated about it beforehand.
“It’s a little bit weird because they hadn’t sent out an email to me directly,” Awan said. “I showed up at Senator training, got the remarks back from one of the legislative leaders and they told me I am not a chair anymore.”
Despite the disappointment, Awan said he won’t be taking this issue to the Court as he believes they have more important topics to discuss and would much rather resolve it personally with the Senate and the Speaker.
The Cougar reached out to Nieto several times, however, could not get a quote from him due to various previous commitments.
