[23] in UA Senate
Re: Summer Update: Constitution Committee
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew Lukmann)
Sat Aug 15 18:42:52 2009
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2009 18:42:30 -0400
From: Andrew Lukmann <lukymann@MIT.EDU>
To: Paul Baranay <pbaranay@mit.edu>
CC: ua-senate@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <71c951390908151139s3699fb11p8549a3838169053d@mail.gmail.com>
Hey Paul,
These look like some pretty good ideas that tend to address peculiar
inconsistencies that are largely artifacts from old operating procedures
in the UA (e.g. Senate rep to Exec only exists because it replaced the
Senate Rep to the Coordinating Committee). That said, I think that there
are a couple of changes that I think might prove unwise and should be
reconsidered:
1) *Changes to the budget review committee*.
This committee was originally intended to be an expressly legislative
(Senate-side) body operating under the Senate's "power of the purse"
purview to control and oversee the UA's finances. In a similar way to
the U.S. Government, in which the Executive (through the OMB) crafts and
submits a budget to the legislature for review, revision and approval,
in the UA, the President and the Treasurer craft and propose a budget
for review and approval by the Senate. In the same way that congress has
committee on appropriations, we added a budget review committee to take
a fine-toothed comb to the proposed budget and make recommendations to
the broader Senate. This committee was never intended to "represent
Senate and Exec equally" - the Exec has the opportunity to make its
statement in the budget itself. Changing the dynamics of this committee
to include fewer senators and making the Treasurer the chair of this
committee would amount to making the head of the OMB the ex-officio
chairman of the appropriations committees and would eliminate a
meaningful check on executive power. It is already far too easy for the
Senate to simply rubber stamp the (often wafteful) proposed budgets -
why would you want to make this easier?
2) *Changes to the qualifications for Speaker/Vice Speaker*
It's a fairly well-established practice that the incoming key officers
of the Speaker must be veterans of that institution, and as a former
Speaker, I can say that there are important reasons for keeping this
unchanged. Members of the body learn much about the common practices and
traditions of the body that carry on from year to year. They understand
proper procedure and the dynamics of running an often unwieldy body in
meetings that can carry on as long as six or seven hours. The senate,
more than other bodies in the UA has remained fairly consistent in its
practices (despite high levels of turnover) largely because there has
always been some consistency and overlap in its leadership. Earlier in
your document you propose (probably correctly) removing the requirement
that ex-officio non voting members attend regular meetings. As such, by
then making them eligible for the Speakership, you open up the potential
of electing a Speaker that has never attended a Senate meeting. This
will have important long term ramification on the character of the body
that should be considered more closely.
Other thoughts:
Suspending the Bylaws (broadly) is in there largely to be consistent
with common practice and with Robert's Rules.
Also, having the Speaker and Vice Chairs be elected Senators is also
consistent with common practice (e.g. the Speaker of the U.S. House is
chosen from the elected membership). As a result, in the past, Speakers
that were elected during the previous session that either chose not to
run in their constituencies or lost the election still stood as Speaker,
but refrained from exercising their ability to break ties in that
circumstance. That said, I don't think that it's necessarily a bad idea
to exempt the speaker and the vice-chair from the elected/voting body
but you will have to decide whether the Speaker will retain the ability
to break tie votes even if they were not popularly elected.
Please write back with any thoughts...
Yours,
Andrew L.
UA Cruft
Paul Baranay wrote:
> Hey Senate,
>
> I hope you are all having a great summer. The Constitution Committee
> has been hard at work reviewing and revising the UA's governing
> documents, and I wanted to take a moment to update you on some of the
> most important changes to the Senate Bylaws. (As a reminder, none of
> these recommendations are binding on the UA; the Senate must still
> vote on all changes for them to have effect.)
>
> * Changed the name of the Senate Vice-Chair to Senate Vice-Speaker.
> Reasoning: Aesthetics, consistency.
>
> * Explicitly added that the Speaker and Vice-Speaker shall not be
> Senators.
> Reasoning: The Speaker is supposed to be impartial, and so cannot
> adequately represent a constituency's interests and also chair a
> Senate meeting. Similarly, if the Vice-Speaker is also a living
> group's Senator, but needs to take over for the Speaker and chair the
> meeting, that living group would effectively lose a vote.
>
> * Chairman of all UA committees (including ad hoc committees) are ex
> officio, non-voting members of Senate. They can sponsor legislation.
> Moreover, ex officio members are no longer required to attend Senate,
> but can be compelled to attend a Senate meeting given 48 hours notice
> (in order for Senate to ask their opinion on a bill, for instance).
> Reasoning:
>
> * We are discussing consolidating the structure of the Executive
> Committees; you can read about this in our minutes. Bennie will be
> emailing the committee chairs to get their feedback shortly; likewise,
> a report with more details will also be coming out soon.
>
> * UA Treasurer shall "oversee" Finboard (but not chair it), much like
> the Secretary General currently oversees the Communications Committee
> and the History Committee.
> Reasoning:
>
> * We are considering removing Senate Representative to Exec, but not
> this hasn't actually been implemented. What do you all think?
> Reasoning: The Senate Rep to Exec's function is basically performed by
> the Speaker and Vice-Speaker.
>
> * The Special Senate Budgetary Committee, which is charged with
> reviewing the UA Operating Budget, will now be chaired by the
> Treasurer and will consist of the Treasurer, the Speaker, and the
> President, plus one Senator and one member of Senate (who could be a
> Senator or an ex officio member) chosen by the Speaker. (Previously
> the committee was chaired by the Speaker and consisted of the
> President, Vice President, Speaker, Treasurer, and three Senators
> chosen by the Speaker.)
> Reasoning: Changing the committee chair made since from a financial
> perspective. Likewise, having a smaller committee that still
> adequately represented Senate and Exec equally seemed more ideal for
> getting things done.
>
> * The candidates for Speaker and Vice Speaker elections must be
> current or past members of Senate. Prior, the candidates for Speaker
> had to be current or past voting members (i.e. a Senator) and the
> candidates for Vice Speaker had to be current voting members.
> Reasoning: First, having identical requirements for Speaker and Vice
> Speaker seemed sensible. Second, we wanted the requirements to be
> more open. If Senate feels that candidates are not experienced
> enough, they can indicate that during the discussion and the voting; a
> provision in the bylaws forbidding this did not seem necessary.
>
> * Suspension of bylaws
> We're talking about removing the suspension provisions in the
> bylaws, and instead allowing only individual clauses to be suspended.
> Which sections do you believe should be suspendable? Being able to
> suspend the agenda seems obvious - but what else?
>
> Please feel free to reply-all to this email with your thoughts.
>
> Sincerely,
> Paul
> ---
> Speaker of the UA Senate
> Co-Chair, Constitutional Committee
