Four pieces of ASUW legislation came to final votes in the Wednesday, Feb. 6 session of the student senate, concluding bills introduced in the previous session on Jan. 30.
Two allocations of funds were granted to Recognized Student Organizations: $4,582 to the Latter Day Saint Student Association for their 13th annual Brown and Gold Banquet and Ball, a formal dinner and dance with a guest speaker, on Saturday, Feb 24; $8,280 to the Persian Students Association for their event celebrating the Persian New Year on Saturday, March 17—Persia being the name for the nation of Iran until a request that foreign delegates use a new name to reflect the region’s modern identity.
ASUW President Ben Wetzel brought to attention the issue that no RSO has recommendations on their sites for contacting Disability Support Services to help students access their events and urged external and internal improvements for clarity and communication to solve the problem.
“I recommended not to put anybody through the probation process because it was a new addition at the time and it was something that we did not include properly in the education material,” Wetzel said.
The first bill to come to vote was Senate Bill No. 2591, which moved to eliminate processing from the regular ASUW agenda. Processing is an anything-goes period of open debate and discussion, criticized by the bill’s author, Senator Alex McKenna, as too regularly devolving into hostility and unprofessional behavior. Some points raised by senators included the problem of transparency and that processing is not officially on the record. With acknowledgements that processing could use some much-needed improvements but is still an important opportunity for communication, the bill failed with a vote of 22-2.
SB No. 2592 followed, seeking to finalize the approval of ASUW’s strategic plan, “Moving Forward.” Criticisms that the plan was too vague to properly guide ASUW’s direction and general purpose were voiced, but the plan was sufficient enough to be passed with a vote of 19-5.
SB No. 2593 concerned ASUW’s finance policy for RSO funding, seeking to restructure its official policy to create guidelines for violations by RSOs and establish probation, rather than suspension, as an initial punitive measure. The legislation was tabled for further consideration.
The evening’s final bill, SB No. 2594, saw extended debate among senators. The bill’s purpose was to change the requisite qualifications for a position as an ASUW senator, amounting to opportunities for members of the Freshman Senate to progress to ASUW after a single semester of senatorial experience, rather than two—which would also provide the opportunity to ease ASUW senator vacancies. Despite support for the bill coming from senators who emphasized the freedom of choice left to freshman senators about whether to remain in Freshman Senate or try their hand as candidates in open elections for ASUW, strong opposition from freshmen senators in the gallery who sought to maintain the integrity of purpose and membership of Freshman Senate resulted in defeat with a vote of 19-5.
