Flores-Bautista and Mason-Wagner face off at ASG debate

The Colorado Mesa University ASG debates took place Wednesday evening, recorded by CMU-TV in their studio in Escalante Hall. The debate was co-moderated by Editor in Chief of The Criterion Chris DeLeon and Janine Hald.

After a commercial break following the debate for student trustee candidates, covered in the Criterion article Hobbs, Rupple, Tellez and VanGundy debate for student trustee position, Current ASG President Beau Flores and his running mate Angel Bautista entered, along with Senators Lauren Mason and Alex Wagner.

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High priority topics of the debate covered Flores’ use of several executive orders which bypassed the legislative branch and Wagner’s vote against a donation toward Latimer House, a safe place for victims of domestic violence, through the nonprofit’s Men in Heels fundraiser event.

Flores defended his nine executive orders, saying they were each matters that were timely or important. “It is the ability and the power granted to the president with our constitution and our bylaws,” Flores said. “I guess, more in depth, it’s the reasons for an executive order.”

“These executive orders are not done solely on me, they are done with the body,” Flores said.

Wagner responded to Flores’ explanation of his executive orders by saying that she wished for the legislative branch to have more power. “A lot of [subjects] are based on legislation that senators started to put into motion, and rather than bringing them to the point of completion, President Flores would kind of push them onto executive orders and make them happen that way, which definitely isn’t wrong, but I think more power should be given to the senate in that process,” Wagner said.

“Next year, we want to really work on empowering the senate and showing them how to make their own legislation and drive them rather than stepping in with an executive order,” Mason said.

Flores took the opportunity of a rebuttal to further defend the executive orders. “I will bring up something and I will wait two to three weeks, and if nothing has been done, I will sign an executive order,” Flores said. “It is something that needs to be done and if I don’t see it done, then I will, with some advice, [get] it done.”

“All the times that I have said, with the executive members of preparing you guys, ‘This is what you need to do,’ using that as an argument now is really invalid,” Flores said. “There are minutes that state that.” He referred to the minutes of ASG meetings for anyone who wanted to fact check his claim.

On the topic of Wagner’s vote against the Latimer House donation through the Men in Heels fundraiser, Wagner admitted the vote and went on to explain her fiscal reasons for voting against it.

“That’s actually something that has a really close place in my heart, so it’s not that I was against the actual victims’ organization as a whole,” Wagner said. “It just so happened that that meeting was one that was closer to the beginning of the the year and that issue was brought up without my knowledge, so I wasn’t able to talk to my constituents previous to that vote. I did not feel comfortable with the amount of $2,000 because President Flores and Vice President Vela had run on the platform of transparency and fiscal responsibility. I just felt like $2,000 was a really large sum of money to donate to something that didn’t actually directly benefit students.”

Mason, who voted yes for donation to Latimer House, said that she thinks Wagner’s ability to say no to some things shows a needed sense of critical thinking. “I think it is good to be critical, especially when you’re being fiscally responsible, and so I think the fact that [Wagner] voted no as an informed voter isn’t because she was against the cause, but rather because she was trying to show her constituents that she’s standing up for them and that she wants to advocate for them,” Mason said.

Bautista said that he thought the cause was extremely important. “If I was a senator, I’d love to vote on that because you don’t know what students are going through on campus,” Bautista said. “Some students may have that layer deep down inside [themselves] where they went through sexual abuse or sexual assault on campus, and if you deny that money, then you’re not representing the students completely.”

In other matters, Mason and Wagner emphasized their desire to strengthen the sense of community both within CMU’s campus and also with local businesses. Flores and Bautista had similar goals but with a more prominent goal to continue helping CMU’s satellite campuses, Western Colorado Community College and the Montrose CMU campus, as they have been doing all year.

“There’s such an interest in every student to find their family on campus and find that group that they’re really going to get inspired with and that is going to get them the experience that they need to grow, but the biggest difficulty is finding access into that group and not be intimidated by getting involved,” Wagner said.

Bautista mentors youth at the EUREKA! McConnelly Science Museum and coaches youth football and lacrosse. He used these experiences as examples to reach out to future generations.

“The best way to really enhance CMU is to focus on those kids who are juniors and seniors right now, who are in high school and graduating,” Bautista said. “We retain our talent and knowledge here in town, and when we have that, CMU’s just going to exponentially grow in the community. The second thing is, once we retain that knowledge, our graduation rates are just going to skyrocket, so I think for our community, we really need to focus on external communications because we already have relationships with small businesses.”

DeLeon posed a question about Bautista’s ability to lead due to his lack of experience within ASG. Bautista’s answer was that his experience in leading elsewhere has prepared him. “Wherever you’re at, you’re learning how to be a leader,” Bautista said. “Those characteristics and attributes you learn through communication, tenacity, those things are universal assets that you harness within your own self.”

Flores then pointed out that Bautista is involved in ASG even if he isn’t a senator. “If we look at the actual position that Angel was in, he was actually in the presidential cabinet, which is a part of ASG, so Angel basically has the same amount of experience as Senator Wagner,” Flores said. “For a year he’s been, if not longer, part of the presidential cabinet where they serve to advise me.”

Flores described himself as being straightforward and liking to get things done. “I think what I can bring is what I brought, and that’s definitely something that people can say is, I guess bold,” Flores said.

Mason regarded Flores’ “boldness” as a good quality that she shared. “I’m one of his biggest advocates against whatever he’s going for and I think that’s my strongest ability right now, is I’m not afraid to go against the current president,” Mason said. “I’m not afraid to go against everyone who’s working against me because I know what my constituents have said and what the people I have talked to believe in.”

Voting for the positions of student trustee and president and vice president will open on Monday and close Tuesday at 5 p.m.