The student government elected leadership for their next session in a nine-hour marathon

session Sunday.

The Associated Students of Madison Student Council elected Brandon Williams as chair and Adam Johnson as vice chair with a secret ballot.

Williams, former chair of SSFC, ran against Madison People Organizing for Wisconsin Educational Rights candidate Jonah Zinn, former chair of Academic Affairs Committee.

Williams said he was excited about being elected and he thought the secret ballot was a great idea because it will help everyone to move past the elections and work together in the future.

“It’s important to have mutual respect for each other because it makes working together much easier,” Williams said.

The debate centered on what the focus of next session should be and both candidates agreed there needed to be more cooperation between different parts of ASM.

Although some members of Student Council looked to Williams for his past experience, other members felt Zinn would be in a better place to question current University of Wisconsin administration.

During the debate, Representative Jolie Lizotte, a candidate for vice chair, said some organizations came to her saying Williams went back on his word and was hard to work with as Chair of SSFC.

Representative and former chair Tyler Junger said this was the first time he had ever heard someone complain about Williams.

“I’ve never heard of Brandon Williams going back on his word, or him being difficult to work with,” Junger said.

Zinn said after the meeting he hopes to pursue the issues he campaigned on, and the only thing that changed was who will be in charge.

Johnson, former chair of Legislative Affairs, defeated MPOWER candidate Lizotte.

Both candidates for vice chair said they wanted to focus on better communication between ASM and students.

Johnson said he would focus on student organizations because they are the easiest to get involved and are the most interested.

“There is very much a symbiotic relationship that’s good for everyone that we don’t tap into very much,” Johnson said. “There is a huge network of students that want to do something, but we live in this little ASM bubble and we don’t go out and make those simple connections.”

Lizotte said she would focus on getting student organizations involved but also try to get every student involved.

She added if Student Council made an effort to reach out to students they could become ASM’s most important asset.

Student Council also elected Representative T.J. Madsen as secretary. He ran unopposed.

Madsen said he hopes to increase transparency by updating the ASM website to make it easier for students to follow ASM.

Representative Andrea Nichols was also elected chair of the nomination board.

Nichols said she hopes to have the nomination board train new appointments to ASM to help make their transition smoother.

Other leadership appointments included Martin Uraga as Diversity Chair, Kyle Vandenlangenberg as Shared Governance Chair, Junger as Rules Committee Chair, Sam Polstein as Legislative Affairs and Carl Fergus as Academic Affairs Chair.