In a chaotic week of Student Assembly internal politics, Patrick Kuehl ‘24 has emerged as the body’s next President.
After Pedro Da Silveira ‘25—who won the presidential election two weeks ago—was ousted due to pending Title IX cases against him, a fight erupted over who would take the position. Da Silveira was in office for about four hours prior to his ouster, making his presidency the shortest on record. After eight days of confusion, the Student Assembly’s Office of Ethics recommended that Kuehl be appointed to the office.
The source of the confusion was an apparent conflict between the SA’s bylaws and charter. The documents contained dueling provisions for whether the election’s second highest vote getter (Kuehl) or the Executive Vice President (Claire Ting ‘25) would fill a presidential vacancy.
Now, the Student Assembly has adopted Resolution 3, a document crafted by the SA’s Office of Ethics. Resolution 3 confirmed, according to Office of Ethics chairman Alhassan Bangura, “the superiority of … the charter over the implied succession clause of … the bylaws.” Thus, Ting will remain Executive Vice President and Kuehl will take over.
As Ting explained, “[t]he reason why it took so long … the issue is beyond who becomes president as people, but rather what type of precedent we are setting for the assembly. This is the first time a president has ever been sworn in then removed…”
The SA continued to finally seat its senior officers and parliamentarian. Kuehl resigned his seat on the University Assembly and officer position within the SA to take the presidency. So concludes the dramatic weeklong saga, and Cornellians can finally rest at ease– that is, if they were even paying attention to begin with.
