The Associated Student Government shot down a proposed bill to create an internal oversight committee by a wide margin Wednesday.
Hiro Kawashima, the bill’s creator, said it was a matter of enforcing existing rules that require senators to meet with their caucus, post bulletins in their dorms every week and hold an open meeting with their constituents once a quarter.
The Weinberg freshman said he began work on it four weeks ago after hearing about many senators who had failed to fulfill these responsibilities. He determined the Rules Committee did not have the capacity to investigate the alleged violations, which were particularly prevalent for off-campus and Panhellenic Association senators.
“I had five people working in ASG – all from the same area – ask me who their senator was,” he said.
In his sponsorship speech, Kawashima presented these violations as threatening other efforts ASG has made recently to address problems of communication with the student body.
“We try to solve these problems by holding (senators) accountable,” he said. “If they are not accountable, students will not know what is going on, and they will not be able to help.”
The senators were weary of the idea of internal oversight.
“Will you have a member of the committee to make sure that this committee does its job?” asked Weinberg junior Jesse Garfinkel.
“Do you think it would be awkward for these senators to go to a caucus meeting and think, ‘Oh, they’re watching us?'” questioned Weinberg junior Sheena Agarwal.
ASG President Neal Sales-Griffin, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, responded by saying that if senators did not fulfill these obligations, there had to be some way of finding out and having them removed.
“That comes with the territory, that’s what happens,” the SESP senior said.
Afterwards, the subject of criticism became the inefficiency of having an additional committee.
Grace Adamson, a SESP junior, said an extra committee would tie down valuable senator time.
“I don’t think there’s a need for a whole committee to check bulletin boards in dorms,” said Adamson, who serves on the Rules Committee. “This is Northwestern and we have other things to do.”
As the debate wound down, Adamson and fellow committee member Hariharan Vijay proposed using existing positions, like caucus chairs, to investigate violations.
“Why can’t we police ourself?” the Weinberg senior asked. “That’s why we have subcommittees and caucuses.”
After the bill’s defeat, Kawashima took the podium and announced that he would introduce a version of the bill he had already drafted creating oversight functions elsewhere in ASG. He introduced this week’s version because he felt the previous draft had issues with its constitutionality after a discussion with Parliamentarian and Rules Committee chairman Will Upton, he said. Upton ended the session by publicly noting that many individuals who wanted to move investigative powers to the Rules Committee hadn’t discussed its constitutionality with him.
“In the future, before you make any assumptions about the Rules Committee, please come talk to me first,” the Weinberg senior said.
