Since the Student Government election in April, the SG Senate has had problems gaining new student representatives. There are fewer than 60 senators serving during the summer session, and, in accordance with SG statutes, there will be an interim election in July to attract more senators to hopefully fill the rest of the senate’s 70 seats.

However, last week, senate president Stavros Papandreou said there were nine senators removed from the senate for missing the first two senate meetings without a valid excuse. According to the senate’s rules of procedure, a senator who misses the first two consecutive meetings without a valid excuse is removed from the senate.

“What happens is people sign up in the beginning of April and then realize they can’t commit,” Papandreou said.

While Papandreou did say nine people being removed is normal in the beginning, he added that it is a bit alarming. Over the past two years, Papandreou said, he has never seen all 70 of the senate seats filled.

“There have been no more than about 55 senators at a time,” he said.

Papandreou was SG Senate Pro Tempore during the 2003-04 school year and said he proposed that 70 seats in the senate were too many and wanted to cap the enrollment of senators, but none of the senators agreed on it.

“I wanted to cap the seats at about 60, but no one agreed,” he said. “If (retaining people) is still a problem, I will hold out until the fall semester and ask about capping the seats again.”

As for those nine senators who will be removed, Papandreou said according to statutes they are out of senate, but if someone appears at the next senate executive meeting and shows and a valid excuse, such as being in the hospital, he will allow them to stay. Interim elections will be the first Wednesday and Thursday of July and those nine spots can be filled.

“We always have people who don’t have the decency to just resign. (These nine people) just prove that,” Papandreou said.