On Monday, May 5, the Student Senate passed a resolution calling for a new election next fall, a reworking of amendments, training for the Executive Committee and better communication with the student body.
This action was taken based on the recommendation of an Administrative Conference that had been arranged in response to misguided amendments of the Senate’s Constitution earlier this year.
The Administrative Conference was prompted by Senate’s approval of two amendments earlier in the year, one creating a Student Senate Webmaster position and the other altering the requirement that a presidential candidate must have spent two semesters at Gustavus to only one, allowing First-Years to run for the position. Complaints were raised by some claiming that the amendments did not go through the proper procedure called for by the Constitution.
“[Senate has to] propose an amendment one week, talk to the President of the College, Dean of Students, Director of Student Activities and make it public. It then requires a two-thirds majority vote at the next Senate meeting,” said Junior Psychology Major and Parliamentarian Scott Broady. “[Senate] suspended the rules of the Constitution in order to amend it.”
“[The] Fall Semester Senate amended the Constitution unconstitutionally,” said Broady.
The resolution was the result of numerous meetings between J-Board and senators. “[The resolution was the] product of a lot of meetings and work done, Senators working with J-Board. Through that process we came up with the resolution,” said Broady.
The resolution stipulates: “The current Co-Presidents, Cabinet, Executive Committee, and Senate shall continue business as usual until the Co-President election in the fall of 2008.” The election in the fall will be slightly different, because the co-presidents elected will only serve two semesters rather than the three-semester term that Senate adopted.
Elections will also be held in the spring. The pair elected will then be the Senate co-presidents until the spring semester of 2009. The resolution also requested that a committee be formed to revise the Constitution. The committee will be composed of three senators, a student at-large and the Parliamentarian as the chair. The co-presidents will also work with the committee, but will not have a vote in the final decision of the committee.
“[We will work on] overall clarity and making sure it is concise and consistent,” said First-year Co-President Kim Braun. “Our Constitution is much longer than [those of] other schools. We might shorten it to what is most imperative and add to the by-laws.”
The reaction to the resolution was mostly positive. “I think that Senate made a mistake and that it is absolutely necessary to fix it and inform the student body [of] what happened,” said First-year Senator Anna Dzurik.
“I think that Senate is taking responsibility for all its actions and proceeding in an appropriate manner,” said Sophomore Political Science Major and Senator Nick Harper.
“Overall, this [resolution] should help Senate become more transparent and functioning,” said Braun.
The videotaping aspect of the resolution was met with some disagreements. “I like the idea of video recording Senate meetings because students don’t really know what goes on except by word of mouth,” said Dzurik.
“For me personally, I think that videotaping Senate meetings is a little much. Sound recording would have been enough,” said Harper.
Be ready in the fall for a heated political environment, with both national and campus campaigns running at full strength.