A buzz filled Ronald Tutor Campus Center as USG senators and cabinet members waited to welcome next year’s cabinet into their roles, the nominees in the audience waiting in anticipation of being named and confirmed into office.
At the end of the night, Madison Troup was named speaker of the senate. Shrinidhi Sriram was named chief of staff. Sammy Lee was named chief communications officer. Jackson Alexander was named chief financial officer. Sage Murthy was named chief programming officer. Angie Del Gaudio was chief diversity officer.
The nominees were introduced by president-elect Syrabi Rahman and vice president-elect Diane Kim.
Tuesday night’s meeting started with thunderous debate, as three senators motioned to move the confirmation of the 2026-27 executive cabinet to next week’s meeting, believing the nominee list was finished too soon before the vote and wanting to avoid a hasty decision.
Senator Sabeeh Mirza called the motion “grandstanding.”
“The incoming cabinet is in this room,” he said, before calling the idea of postponing “a form of disrespect.”
Senators Moy Valdez, Sudeepta Murthy, and Karim Debian, in favor of the motion to postpone the vote, responded. “I don’t believe this to be disrespect in any sense of the word,” said Valdez, “I think that if this were any other decision for any other role, people would be up in arms only knowing the confirmation not even 30 minutes before the vote.”
Valdez clarified that the motion stemmed in no way from a lack of faith in the candidates, but was instead to uphold the transparency that so many USG members were elected on.
“This vote is not to push new candidates away, it’s simply to give the public more time to be transparent, and to ask questions,” Valdez said, “ since I know there are senators that have questions they’d like to ask.”
Debian chimed in, speaking to the due process required of senators overseeing the appointment of new members.
“The way the bylaws are currently written, it is the responsibility of this senate class to confirm the nominees,” said Debian. “It would be reasonable to give senators a time to review these nominees, and ask questions if needed in a more constructive setting”
Murthy, too, supported the motion to postpone for the sake of transparency.
“We’ve seen multiple circumstances happen where the senate is not given enough time before elections,” said Murthy.
Two roll call votes later, the motion to table the confirmation failed – 3-9 both times, and the cabinet was confirmed to a standing ovation.