Reform efforts will take the spotlight at Wednesday night’s Associated Student Government Senate meeting. Two bills — one about the composition of the Senate and one about publicizing ASG finances — will come before the Senate for debate and a vote.
The first bill, titled “A Senate of Leaders,” aims to completely alter the make-up of the Senate by changing how some senators are elected and cutting the total number of senators almost in half.
The bill, authored by Communication senior Matt Hall and McCormick sophomore Kunal Kumar, is the result of months of work by the Ad-Hoc Committee on Student Government Reform, which was formed during Winter Quarter. Hall and Kumar are the committee’s co-chairmen.
Among many changes to the ASG constitution, the bill would reduce the total number of senators from 82 to 49 and eliminate annual dorm senator elections.
Under the new rules, the Residence Hall Association and Residential College Board would have the authority to elect dorm senators, rather than dorm residents voting on candidates. At previous Senate meetings, Hall said the current system of holding dorm elections at the beginning of the school year leads to students electing senators they don’t know, most of whom are freshmen.
Hall, an off-campus senator, said the success of his bill depends on a big senator turnout at Wednesday night’s meeting.
“I think it’s very likely that we’ll try to call most of the senators if not all and just encourage them to attend,” said Hall.
He said some senators have approached him with concerns about the bill and that he thinks student groups may be wary of losing their connection to the Senate.
Under the bill, the number of seats for student groups would be reduced from 22 to 15, although the percentage of student group seats relative to the rest of the Senate would actually increase.
Hall said the bill would make student group coalitions constitutionally legal, meaning groups that did not get a spot in the Senate could apply to hold a seat with other similar groups.
The bill would also let fraternity and sorority members who don’t live in a house be senators, which was not previously allowed.
Off-campus Sen. Howard W. Buffett, a Communication junior, will also propose a bill aimed at ASG reform. Buffett’s proposal would require the ASG treasurer to notify the Senate of “any upcoming expenditures, transfers, or reimbursements.” The bill would also allow senators to object to expenditures, which would then require a majority vote to be approved. If any transaction of more than $50 is discovered and not reported by the treasurer, the ASG accounts would be frozen and an investigation into misconduct begun.
A bill calling for study abroad in Israel was expected to be introduced as well. But after authors of the proposal did not appear at the academic committee’s meeting Monday night, the proposal failed, said Academic Vice President Jason Downs, a Weinberg junior.
“We went ahead and considered the bill, but some of the members on the committee had concerns, and no one was there to answer questions,” said Downs.
Reach Evan Hill at [email protected].
