[19926] in APO-L
Re: Shorten Legislative Session
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (N-space)
Sat Jan 23 06:21:52 1999
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 06:21:39 -0500
Reply-To: N-space <nasadk@RPI.EDU>
From: N-space <nasadk@RPI.EDU>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Oscar said :
"
I have come up with the following proposal:
Any piece of legislation proposed that is voted down by the
legislative assembly shall be ineligible for consideration in following
National Convention, unless proposed by the National Executive Board.
Rationale:
{has not been written yet}
"
I'm curious as to what inspired you to create this? Is it that you've seen
several pieces of legislation that get shot down convention after convention
constantly being re-introduced? Is this an attempt to streamline the
committee process and keep it from getting choked by legislation?
For It :
By following this proposal, you end up reducing the legislation that is
potentially being worked on at each convention. Less work to do, and in
theory, this *could* allow for longer discussion of issues that the
convention delegates feel they need to talk about -- and not make for
lengthy legislative sessions.
Against It:
In a way, to pass this, you place a restriction that basically installs a
four year cycle on legislation that fails. Shouldn't the members of the
fraternity be allowed to bring forth legislation that they feel is relevant at
*each* convention? With a four year cycle, this can lock out newer brothers
from reproposing something that they believe in that had failed at a prior
convention.
This is just off the cuff at 6am, mind you. But I must ask, what is your
goal? To reduce what the legislative body as a whole has to do -or- to
reduce the work that the legislative committees have to do? If it to reduce
the committee work, and the committees *are* loaded with too much work, then
maybe it makes sense to add additional committees to consider the legislation.
I'd be a littly antsy about restricting the abilities of brothers to introduce
legislation because I think that it is a fair (and good) thing to allow any
brother of this fraternity to propose any relevant legislation that they
believe in. I also can see this proposal having negative consequences by
locking out a new brother's idea when an older brother's fails.
N-space
<nasadk@rpi.edu>
Alum, EZ, RPI, NY
