Volume CXIII No. 104 Monday, March 2, 2009 www.dailycampus.

com

Impeachment filed against USG comptroller Ortiz

By Christopher Duray
Senior Staff Writer
A USG senator has filed for impeach-
ment against USG comptroller Jason
Ortiz. The impeachment was filed on
the grounds that his recent attempt to
veto about $12,000 of funding for the
paintball team was biased.
The veto was overturned at a USG
meeting Feb. 18, that same night,
Multicultural and Diversity senator
Mary Lorenz sent an e-mail to Chief
Justice John Ernst petitioning for an
impeachment hearing.
USG procedure says that once
impeachment has been filed, the judi-
ciary committee has to vote on whether
or not to pass it along to the senate,
which then votes on the matter. It takes
a two-thirds majority of present sena-
tors to approve an impeachment.
Ernst did not respond to several
attempts to contact him regarding when
the judiciary would convene for a vote.
In accordance with USG policy con-
cerning open matters, Lorenz declined
to comment on her position. But accord-
ing to a copy of her impeachment
request, obtained by The Daily Campus
from Ortiz, Lorenz says that, in sepa-
rating and vetoing one group over all
the others, Ortiz was making an unfair
judgment about the value of that club.
“By comparing the value of the appli-
cations of the groups, there is no longer
a sense of fairness,” Lorenz’s e-mail
reads. “He is no longer following our
policies in applying funding and appli-
cations for all groups.”
Article nine, section three of the USG
Constitution gives the comptroller the
ability to veto a funding request, but
outside of requiring notification to the
rejected party, places no limits on when
the officer can exercise that right.
Ortiz defended his veto, saying that the
action was an attempt to reduce what he
described as non-restricted USG spending.
“I have to make a comparison some-
where, otherwise I’m just a rubber stamp,”
he said. “If there is no need for discretion,
then there’s no need for a comptroller.”
In her e-mail, Lorenz makes spe-
cific mention of a Feb. 4 incident where
Ortiz opposed denying funding for
alternative break volunteer trips. She
writes that he said denying volunteer
trips financing was wrong while groups
“with not as good of a cause in com-
parison,” like paintball, still received
large amounts of funding.
Ortiz disagreed with her assess-
ment of the incident, saying that he
was not trying to say one group was
more worthy than another. Ortiz said
he was trying to point out that the
amount of financial scrutiny placed
» PAINTBALL, page 2

UConn lab
tests chimp
By Christopher Duray
Huskies cream Irish on Senior Day
Senior Staff Writer
The body of the chimpan-
UConn holds off Notre Dame
zee that attacked a Stamford
resident Feb. 16 was exam- during final seconds of game
ined by UConn’s Connecticut
Veterinary Medical Diagnostics By Marc Gauthier
Laboratory before being cre- Associate Sports Editor
mated last week.
As the experiments were With 13 seconds remaining in Saturday’s game, Notre
part of a police investigation, Dame’s Jonathan Peoples drove the lane and threw up a
the lab will not release the floater that seemed to hang in the air forever. The Fighting
results of their tests, or iden- Irish were only down four points and Peoples’ runner
tify what tests were done on would have cut the lead in half.
the animal’s body. His shot clanked off the back rim and was heading to
According to university a crowd of UConn and Notre Dame players. Almost out
spokesman David Bauman, of nowhere, Jeff Adrien skied to the air, grabbing the ball
when the lab is contacted to out of flight and pulling down
examine an animal for the state
it is usually to search for blood-
his ninth rebound of the game.
After a small tussle with Luke MEN’S
related maladies.
Only the body of the chim-
Harangody, Adrien put the ball
down and made his way to the
BASKETBALL
panzee was sent to the universi- foul line.
ty.  The head was sent elsewhere He knew the game was over.
for rabies tests. He knew his team had won.
The laboratory, which is par- “It was just a big moment, you
tially funded by the Connecticut know?” Adrien said. “Big play-

72
Department of Agriculture, is ers make big plays in big games
frequently employed by the and I felt like I did that today.”
departments of public health, There were a lot of emotions
environmental protection, agri- before Saturday’s 72-65 victory
culture, and the USDA to make over the Fighting Irish. Some
sure certain animals do not pose players shed a few tears in the
a threat to public health.  During locker room, while others man-
a West Nile virus scare in 2006, aged to hold them in until the
for example, it was UConn’s Senior Day celebration at mid-

65
laboratory that led tests to ascer- court.
tain the threat level. When the game started, the
Huskies came out a little flat,
Christopher.Duray@UConn.edu scoring their first field goal after
three minutes had gone by.
“It was very emotional, the

Conference whole ceremony and everything,” said A.J. Price. “I do

have to admit that it’s kind of a hard transition to go from
that to then playing at such a high level and being com-

focuses on petitive. It’s something you can’t really prepare yourself

for.”
Eventually, the Huskies found their rhythm behind

democracy DAN GINDRAUX/The Daily Campus

By Garon Scott
Campus Correspondent
UConn played host to the
first annual Democracy and
Democratization Conference
Friday and Saturday, attract-
ing 50 experts from 10 differ-
ent countries and all corners of
the United States to discuss a
diverse array of issues relating
to democracy around the world.
The conference, which was
organized by the university’s
political science graduate stu-
dents, featured 10 separate
panels covering topics such
as democracy in Asia, eastern
and western Europe, and the
Americas, the role of citizens
in a democracy, and many sub-
jects in between. It also featured
two keynote addresses, the first
from Yale Sterling Professor Ian
Shapiro, who spoke Friday on
the topic of luck, leadership, and
legitimacy in a country’s transi-
tion to democracy.
Shapiro compared the long
struggle for democracy in South
Africa to the ongoing struggles
» DEMOCRACY, page 3
Hasheem Thabeet puts a layup over Notre Dame’s Luke Harangody in Saturday’s game. Thabeet had 16 points.
Budget cuts threaten Benton,
Museum of Natural History
By Allison Lex
Campus Correspondent
In times of economic cri-
sis, programs in the arts are
often the first to go. After
President Michael Hogan’s
recent announcement that
UConn museums may become
victims of upcoming budget
cuts, students and museum
staff are hoping the William
Benton Museum of Art and
the Connecticut State Museum
of Natural History will be able
to survive.
Because of the current
economic situation, UConn
administrators are making a
comprehensive review at the
value of all university pro-
grams and services. This is
part of an effort to propose a
solution to a predicted $35 bil-
lion budget gap in 2009-2010.
The university’s two on-cam-
pus museums are among the
programs under consideration.
“In these very difficult
times, we can no longer afford
to do all of the things that we
have been doing at the level
we have been doing them,”
Hogan said.
Already, the administration
has closed six centers, merged
four programs into two and
eliminated two graduate pro-
an offensive surge by Adrien and a defensive lockdown
led by Hasheem Thabeet.
When UConn got the ball to the low-post guys, the Irish
» THABEET, page 11
grams that were thought to
be costing the university too
much money.
“Every one of these was a
difficult decision, made after
careful study and discussion,”
Hogan said. “These are never
easy decisions, but we must
examine every program and
unit this way.”
Hogan stressed that the basis
for these decisions is not pure-
ly financial. The academic,
research, social, and cultural
benefits of all programs must
be considered, as well as the
cost to the university. MATT LIN/The Daily Campus
The Natural History Museum and Benton Museum of Art, shown here, are on
» STUDENTS, page 3 the brink of being a part of the budget cut.

»INSIDE MONDAY’S DAILY CAMPUS:

» FOCUS » SPORTS » INDEX

Drumline Live Women’s basketball Weather 2
performance wins Big East Regular Commentary 4
entertains with music, Season Title. Comics 5
dancing. Focus 7
see page 7 see page 14 Sports 14