By Kate Augusto
Within a day of accepting a nomination to be a candidate in the race for next year’s Student Government Association (SGA) president, Dan Kamyck, current SGA director of outreach under administration and public relations, may be out of the race.
Nominations for SGA president were reopened Monday night following former candidate Marines Piney’s announcement that she was dropping out of the race earlier that evening.
Kamyck was then nominated and cleared by the Rules Committee to be a candidate. SGA vice president for administration and finance Ashley Benjamin then sent a subsequent e-mail notifying all senators they then had the opportunity to block Kamyck from the election.
In such a situation, senate members would have to discuss the block at their meeting next Monday and determine whether it was legitimate. A block was required to be e-mailed by 9 p.m. last night. SGA senator Lucas Rose e-mailed a block at 8:26 p.m.
Rose did not give a reason in the e-mail, but he will have to argue his reason at the meeting, said SGA parliamentarian Grant Oberg. The News was not able to contact Rose as of press time.
If two-thirds of senate pass in favor to block Kamyck, he’s out of the race.
“The ballot has already been finalized by IS (information services),” Oberg said. “If the vote passes, we can’t take Kamyck off the ballot … and we’ll have to figure out what to do with his votes. … elections begin at midnight that night.”
Since it’s already so late in the campaign process, with voting beginning April 1, Oberg, along with SGA president Joey Fiore, decided to allow Kamyck to continue campaigning despite the block.
Kamyck said one of the disadvantages of his campaign will be that he’s had less time already, but he doesn’t view this as significant as a problem.
“Rob has had two weeks already to campaign, although he hasn’t made much of it. Also, he’s a well-known Greek figure and the Greek community is well-symbolized this year and ready to make their mark on SGA,” Kamyck said.
Ranley said that having less time will be a problem for Kamyck since Ranley spent the first week organizing the campaign. However, he said both of them face the challenge of reaching out to students to actually get them to vote.
With the direct election system, candidates need 20 percent of the student body to vote this year. If this is not met, SGA will have a two week-long extension period before the election goes back to Senate.
One of the advantages of having more time was that Ranley was able to participate in both presidential debates hosted by The News.
During Monday’s debate, Ranley answered several questions including ones about his feelings on the administration’s performance, his time priorities and the benefits of direct elections.
Piney made her resignation announcement at Monday’s debate.
“This has been a very exciting and fulfilling time for me during the campaign season and I am thankful and honored that I was a presidential nominee and thankful that the senate considered me capable of leading the organization,” she said. “Unfortunately, after giving my candidacy close consideration, I have decided to suspend my bid and my campaign for the presidency.”
In an interview with The News, Piney said she had decided there were other opportunities she wanted to pursue while at college that she wouldn’t have the time to do if she was SGA president.
“I had enough faith in other candidates to say it was my time to step back and enjoy college,” she said.
Piney is now endorsing Ranley.
Though Kamyck did not have the publicity benefit from participating in the debate he said he’s ready to go.
“I’m not a traditional candidate and this is not a traditional campaign. Time is short but we’re just getting revved up,” Kamyck said.
