Internal politics have distracted members of Marquette Student Government from the work students elected them to do, MUSG Adviser Jon Dooley said at the group's Thursday meeting.

"You guys have been debating whether you need to double-check the work of a committee assigned by your body to make decisions," Dooley said. "What you've lost sight of in this are the issues that students elected you to take care of."

Dooley said the proposed Reserve Fund Budget Amendment, which would give senators the option to re-evaluate decisions made by the Budget Committee, "seems to me to be about political power."

The program and financial vice presidents and MUSG adviser "are not directly elected by Marquette undergraduate students; hence, they are not held accountable by a particular constituency," the amendment states.

"To suggest that two of the executive board members who were confirmed by the Senate … are not accountable is dishonest," Dooley said. "As I look at this bill, I see mistrust between (the) Senate and the executive board not only in the context of the bill but also in the way that this debate and discussion has happened."

Financial Vice President Andrew Doyle, a senior in the College of Business Administration, said although he is not directly elected by undergraduate students, he is "held accountable to the entire student population."

Tim Smith, a sophomore senator for the College of Business Administration, said he was upset Dooley did not contact the bill's authors until Thursday night and that he "didn't confront them while it was being worked on."

"I was kind of outraged by what happened," Smith said. "I feel that he crossed the line of advising and I feel that he explicitly stated his opinion on the bill. The notion that we're trying to do a power grab is absurd."

According to MUSG's constitution, the adviser's role is to serve as a voting member of the Budget Committee and as counsel to the Student Organizations Allocations Committee.

Dooley said he was troubled by senators' lack of action surrounding their constituents' concerns about residence life and the proposed 16 percent price increase for a U-Pass.

"Your colleagues over at (the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) went to a county board meeting Monday night and spoke up on behalf of the students at UWM about the perspective of students there about the fee increase," Dooley said. "This body has been silent about that."

Pat Landry, senator for Straz Tower and a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences, said Dooley may not know about senators' efforts outside of meetings.

"Just because legislation hasn't gone through doesn't mean things aren't getting done," Landry said.

Brian Henry, senator for O'Donnell Hall and a freshman in the College of Communication, said he sees some mistrust among Senate members.

"Not everyone is all the way behind our executive council, but I think they're doing what needs to be done and they'll continue to do that," Henry said.

MUSG President Alex Hermanny, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, said he agreed the Senate was becoming "a little too inward-focused."

"It caused some people to put a couple of projects they might have been really passionate about on the back burner," he said.

Dooley told senators that a closed executive session was "not appropriate" when it was used four weeks ago to freely discuss an appeal for funding of a fall break service trip to New Orleans.

"If you can't discuss business in front of the media, then you shouldn't be discussing it at a Senate meeting," he said. "Executive session really should be reserved for those rare occasions when you make personnel decisions."

Hermanny said the discussions should have happened "one-on-one" instead of in an executive session.

Dooley also emphasized the need for careful consideration and research of new legislation.

"I think that creating a policy as a response to a single decision is not good policy," Dooley said. "(The service trip's funding) is the second time in seven years that the Budget Committee has not forwarded a recommendation to the Senate."

He said he had referred the authors of the amendment to Doyle and to Mark McCarthy, dean of student development and a former MUSG adviser, to get background about the bill but "my impression was that they hadn't talked to any of them."

"We got (Doyle's) perspective in an e-mail on Monday," said Landry, a co-author of the bill. "I don't think that a historical perspective is the most important thing when it comes to representing students. The people that elected us are the people that we're held accountable to and nobody else."

Dooley said Saturday he has already seen the senators "recommit to working on the issues that students care about."

After Dooley spoke to the Senate, Hermanny said he anticipates change.

"Now I think they're fired up to get going on their projects," he said.