At the start of the November 13 meeting, Senator Agnes Wong suspended the legislative bylaws so she could add a last minute bill for the College Republicans club to the “New Business” section of the agenda.
Perhaps differing convention was a theme at the meeting, with the well-seasoned temporary adviser, Dr. Charles Nies who calmed down some of the usually belligerent senators. His attitude seemed to express nonchalance when he chose to sit on the periphery of the room instead of at the table with the senators and president.
One recurring snag in the meetings, however, is the inability of the judicial branch of ASUCM to schedule a meeting. Senator Jared Zisser, the court liaison, has been stuck saying something along the lines of, “Court did not meet, I have nothing to report,” for weeks.
Article six, section seven of ASUCM’s constitution stipulates, “All members of the Court shall attend weekly meetings to review legislation and conduct business.” Even more damning, section nine of the constitution states, “Any member of the Court absent from three (3) weekly meetings per semester shall be subject to removal from office.”
From what I can see, the only action the ASUCM senators are taking to contend with the truant members of court is to sigh deeply and laugh a little.
The good news of the meeting involved ASUCM’s passing of a bill to fund a two-year-old club on campus, Reach Authentic Media (RAM), with about $3,000. Senators did delay voting on this bill for much of the meeting, extending the time for discussion repeatedly.
The voting position of each senator seemed to be defined well before voting began, but discussion about fairness, mostly referencing the recent $18,000 proceedings with the Bobcat Band bill, made the road to voting a sluggish one.
The senators show concern every meeting for precedents that they have set with little regard for examples that past senatorial groups have set. In this case, more than ten percent of what was requested by RAM was cut from the bill. In contrast, more than ten percent was cut from the Bobcat Band bill with instructions to fundraise, a few weeks ago.
As Senator Zachary Mondo pointed out, there are no written guidelines about recommending clubs to fundraise or to simply cut 10 percent off of any bill presented to the group.
Such guidelines, while they have the potential to make ASUCM’s choices of funding clubs run more smoothly, could severely limit their options. Many clubs have a unique set of circumstances when they present a bill. Anything more binding to Senate’s decisions than a set of guidelines would be ill advised and unfair to students.