The recent revelation that Lunar New Year Festival was allocated $5,500 by Student Union for a fireworks display has enraged many students. Criticisms leveled against LNYF and Student Union were that the spending was wasteful, that SU privileges cultural groups over all others and that $5,500 was an obscene amount of money to be spent on an event.

Sofia Vergara fans will have to settle for seeing her on TV as she will not be coming to speak on campus this semester. Her shooting schedule for “Modern Family” conflicted with her ability to visit.

This weekend, 35 Washington University students went to Washington, D.C. to join with other protestors in forming a ring around the White House. They were protesting the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, a project that would connect the Canadian tar sands to oil refineries in Okla. and Texas.

More than 1,700 students voted in this semester’s Student Union elections, which were among the most contested in recent years. The turnout, about 26.7 percent of the undergraduate community, continues an upward trend from previous years; around 1,400 students voted in last fall’s SU elections, and only around 600 voted in fall 2009.

Look, let’s be honest. The Senate elections are a farce. How could they be described as anything but a farce, if year after year, elections in most of the University’s schools are either uncompetitive or uncontested? How can the organization purport to be the voice of the student body if anyone can just sign up to be put on the ballot and win?

This week, 37 students will be running for 24 seats in an unusually contested set of Student Union elections. Three constitutional amendments and half the seats in SU Senate and Treasury will be up for a campus-wide online vote. Elections will take place from Tuesday, Nov. 1 at 8 a.m. until Wednesday, Nov. 2 at 5 p.m.

This week, students will have the opportunity to vote on a variety of constitutional amendments for Student Union. These amendments need a two-thirds majority to pass. The issues are important, and it is important for students to be aware of the potential campus-wide consequences of the votes.

Legislation intended to prevent a repeat of last year’s Bristol Palin fiasco failed to pass Student Union Treasury by one vote on Thursday. The constitutional amendment would have made student referendums faster and more effective. The final vote was 11-6, but it needed a two-thirds margin to pass.

Although Student Union continued to reject appeals last week due to budgetary constraints, an account outside of the group’s general operating budget continues to grow. A savings account, comprised of funds that were allocated to student groups but were never spent, has accrued to more than $300,000.

Student Union Treasury voted to allocate $105,569 to bring John Legend, Sofia Vergara and Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School and author of “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”, to campus in a meeting flooded by about 100 students Tuesday night.