ASG votes to pare down Senate

May 25, 2005

The times they are a-changin’. Associated Student Government senators voted to shrink the Senate nearly in half and to eliminate traditional dorm elections at Wednesday night’s ASG meeting.

The passage of the Ad-Hoc Reform Committee’s constitutional amendment restructures the makeup of the Senate and changes how future representatives will be chosen. The restructuring, which slashes the Senate from 82 to 49 seats, aims to improve efficiency and connect ASG with residence hall governments.

Individual dorms had 42 senator slots before the amendment passed. Now they will have 15 — and they won’t be elected directly by residents. The Residence Hall Association will choose 10 senators, and the Residential College Board will choose five senators through methods not yet determined.

The number of student group Senate slots was cut from 22 to 15.

Other constituencies will gain in representation: The Interfraternity Council and the Panhellenic Association will have five representatives each, and the Student Athletic Advisory Committee will be given a seat for the first time. The remaining eight slots will be for off-campus senators.

“ASG is not perfect now and it’s not going to be perfect regardless of how we vote on this amendment,” said Ad-Hoc co-chairman Matt Hall, a Communication senior. “This is not about finding perfection, this is not about finding the ideal. This is about improving things.”

Allowing organizations to directly send representatives to the Senate would create a link between residence hall governments and ASG that does not exist presently, Hall said.

“We are one student body,” he said. “We should have one student government.”

The amendment passed with a two-thirds majority, needed for any changes to the ASG Constitution.

Debate focused on whether the amendment would create disconnect between students and ASG.

“RHA and RCB are not very organized structures,” said Weinberg junior Mike Silver, a member of ASG’s Academic Committee. “We are expecting the voice of the student body to filter through those organizations. That possibility is not something that can be allowed for.”

Muslim-cultural Students Association member Tasneem Chithiwala spoke twice against the amendment. She said she feared that slashing student group senators and shrinking the Senate would “stifle” democratic conversation.

“I don’t want this to become an elitist organization,” said the Medill sophomore. “I don’t necessarily think bigger is better, but I don’t necessarily think smaller is more efficient.”

According to Hall, the Ad-Hoc committee found that none of the student senates at Northwestern’s peer institutions was nearly as large as the 82-person ASG Senate.

Several senators who voted in favor of the amendment qualified their choices by saying more reforms were still needed.

“I think we can all agree (the) Senate has been inefficient this year,” said College Democrats Sen. Omar Hasan, a Weinberg junior. And while he supported the amendment, he said that there are still “big holes that need to be filled,” including the quality of bills and oversight of the Senate’s performance.

A bill proposed by off-campus Sen. Howard W. Buffett that would require the ASG treasurer to publicize all spending and revenue as well as allow senators to object to financial dealings was voted down by the Senate.

ASG Treasurer Ivy LeTourneau and President Patrick Keenan-Devlin both spoke against the bill.

The Daily’s Evan Hill contributed to this report.

Reach Jordan Weissmann at [email protected].

groups that lost seats: