[261] in UA Senate
Re: 41UAS4.1 "Final Authority"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Alex Dehnert)
Fri Nov 6 13:52:41 2009
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:52:12 -0500
From: Alex Dehnert <adehnert@MIT.EDU>
To: Ted Hilk <thilk@mit.edu>
CC: Richard Dahan <rdahan@mit.edu>, UA Senate <ua-senate@mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <6ed15f040911061030v1baaa638ke0674ea767ce1640@mail.gmail.com>
Ted Hilk wrote:
> "Senate shall have the power to delegate, or revoke
> the delegation of, *any aspect of* its financial authority, but it may,
> in a timely fashion, overrule any decision of its delegate.
> Senate may emplace such limitations, including notification,
> *advance approval*, or waiting requirements, on the exercise of such
> delegated
> power as it sees fit."
These both seem fine.
What do you mean by "advance approval"? It seems vaguely similar to
"waiting requirements", possibly, by which I mean (among probably other
things) things like "you need to tell Senate, and then wait two days for
two Senators to object, in which case you can't do it".
If you want, you can propose those as amendments on Monday, or I'm happy
to do it myself. You should let me know which you'd prefer.
~~Alex
>
> Ted Hilk
> EC Senator
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 1:08 PM, Richard Dahan <rdahan@mit.edu> wrote:
>
>> I personally hope that it does sail through Senate on Monday. I'm not 100%
>> sure I like the whereas clauses, but I do indeed support the That clause,
>> which I will focus on in this e-mail.
>>
>> This essentially gives the Senate more freedom without taking away power.
>> It addresses all of the concerns I initially had with the bill. In a year
>> when we have a great treasurer (like now), Senate can choose to delegate
>> power; but when we don't, we're not forced to do anything. If we're worried
>> about individual committees not doing their jobs, we can just emplace the
>> appropriate "limitations," probably a combination notifications and waiting
>> periods.
>>
>> The only situation for which this bill would be unwise is if in a given
>> year, the Senate is lazy and delegates this responsibility to the treasurer
>> and doesn't follow up, and the treasurer isn't on top of things, and the
>> committees don't do their jobs. I chose to have faith in the UA that this
>> will never happen, and even if it does, the UA will have bigger problems
>> than this bill.
>>
>> Kudos to Alex for overcoming opposition in Senate and persevering over a
>> dragging-out of the issue to produce what I consider a fine piece of
>> legislation. Great job indeed.
>>
>> I hope the senators reading this will take these arguments into account
>> when deciding whether or not to vote for this on Monday, or how long to
>> debate before voting. I personally see nothing wrong with this, but I of
>> course would love to hear your reasoning if you disagree.
>>
>> - RIchard
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 11:48 AM, Alex Dehnert <adehnert@mit.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Did anyone have any thoughts about this bill? Or questions about why it is
>>> good? Or... anything else?
>>>
>>> Should I be assuming from the silence that nobody has issues, and it'll
>>> sail through Senate on Monday (once it (hopefully) gets off the table)? I
>>> mean, I wouldn't mind that... I'm just a little doubtful.
>>>
>>> ~~Alex
>>>
>>>
>>> Alex Dehnert wrote:
>>>
>>>> Sorry about how late this is getting out... As I mentioned in my FPRC
>>>> email, I've been distracted by various things (including by the FPRC, at
>>>> least from cleaning up 4.1...).
>>>>
>>>> Fundamentally, I believe that Senate should be able to delegate authority
>>>> in general, not just because of the reallocation bill. The reallocation bill
>>>> is itself a fairly minor thing --- it'd sway a couple thousand dollars (out
>>>> of about a hundred thousand dollars) to student groups. If the bill doesn't
>>>> pass, I won't actually be very sad (among other reasons, I'm not actually in
>>>> many student groups that get money from Finboard, so I'm only barely
>>>> personally affected by this...).
>>>>
>>>> Anyway... I've expanded on some of my reasoning in new whereas clauses,
>>>> at
>>>> http://web.mit.edu/ua/officers/treasurer/Public/FY10/2009-10-moving-money/constitution.pdf.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> New clauses:
>>>> \whereas{it may be more productive for Senate to delegate its financial
>>>> authority in certain matters}
>>>> \whereas{it is not a productive use of the Senate's time to micromanage
>>>> and debate certain matters}
>>>> \whereas{Senate may have better things to do than carefully examine small
>>>> allocations and reallocations}
>>>> \whereas{such better things may include examining reports such as the DPC
>>>> report and
>>>> the UA ``Response to the Institute-wide Planning Task Force Preliminary
>>>> Report'',
>>>> which may impact long-term Institute policy}
>>>> \whereas{such better things may include examining reports such as the
>>>> Financial Policy Review Committee's report and the Constitution
>>>> Committee's report
>>>> which are likely to impact long-term UA policy}
>>>> \whereas{such better things may also include proactively setting the UA's
>>>> policy,
>>>> including setting broad financial policy or advocacy goals}
>>>>
>>>> That clause (slightly modified):
>>>> ``The Senate shall have final authority over the allocation
>>>> or reallocation of the financial resources of
>>>> this Association and its subsidiary organizations.
>>>> \textbf{Senate shall have the power to delegate, or revoke
>>>> the delegation of, its financial authority, but it may,
>>>> in a timely fashion, overrule any decision of its delegate.
>>>> Senate may emplace such limitations, including notification
>>>> or waiting requirements, on the exercise of such delegated
>>>> power as it sees fit.}
>>>> In addition, it shall require a two- thirds vote of the
>>>> Senate to authorize the release of funds for expenditure
>>>> from the Undergraduate Dues Reserve and
>>>> Contingent (invested reserve).''
>>>>
>>>> ~~Alex
>>>>
>
x
