EVAN CARAVELLI/Arizona Daily Wildcat Stephanie Hartz, a newly elected ASUA senator, waits outside Old Main with her fellow senators for an official ASUA portrait. Hartz's brother is former ASUA president Doug Hartz.

Doug Hartz has always been a typical older brother to little sister Stephanie.

About 10 years ago, Doug, the former ASUA president, broke Stephanie's nose while playing basketball.

"He was the one who always beat me up," said Stephanie, a molecular and cellular biology sophomore. "I've had stitches three or four times."

But now the bruises and the broken noses have healed, and the Hartzes are finding that in college, both their hearts share a soft spot for one thing: student government.

Stephanie, a newly elected senator in the Associated Students of the University of Arizona, said she has her brother to thank for helping her get her foot in ASUA's door.

After trying out a few clubs and organizations her freshman year, Stephanie, a Flinn scholar, decided to give ASUA a try.

Stephanie received 1,324 votes in this year's election, placing her at the top of the 19 senatorial candidates. When her brother ran for the senate in 2001, he placed ninth.

"She has bragging rights now," Doug, now a medical student, said. "But it's OK; she is smarter than me."

I am a lot funnier and taller than she is. She's smarter and probably better looking. ÷ Doug Hartz, former ASUA president

Stephanie attributes some of her success to the name recognition she had because of her brother's history with student government.

"I don't know how popular I was," he said. "A lot of it was on her own two feet and for what she stands for."

In his administration last year, Doug focused on advocating students' concerns while administrators and members of the Arizona Board of Regents discussed the largest tuition hike in UA history.

Instead of taking up where her brother left off, Stephanie hopes to leave her legacy by instituting a fall cultural fair. She also wants to start tailgate parties and road trips for Zona Zoo, increase student voter registration and get the Student Union Memorial Center to accept debit cards.

"What I did was me as an individual," Doug said. "I don't want her to feel pressured by my agenda."

However, he did say he'd twist her arm on establishing a fall break.

"It's the only thing I wanted that I didn't get, and should be done," he said.

Doug's arm-twisting just might work. Stephanie said since hearing about the proposal from her brother, she has become more interested in it.

Although Stephanie and Doug share an interest in student government, they both say they are fairly different.

"I am a lot funnier and taller then she is," he said. "She's smarter and probably better looking."

Stephanie had a few more differences to add to the list.

"He is more political-minded than me," she said. "I'm in it for school."

She said her brother really enjoyed the political and legislative side of student government, but it's not really her "thing."

But Doug said it will become her thing since it comes with the territory.

He said he didn't start out political-minded, but rather, the experience made him so.

He said he got better at reading issues, working through bureaucracy within the state and school, and speaking publicly.

"She will develop the skills I got out of it," he said.

Even with those skills, Stephanie hasn't made any plans to follow in her brother's footsteps in becoming student body president.

"I wouldn't rule it out though," she said.