While I was gone — your belated ASM/UW Recap

Hey, remember me?

For those who were wondering where all the updates were, well, I got tied up in something. But here’s the good news: That something ends tomorrow! So let’s get back to business, shall we? Here’s what happened while I was gone:

-SAC Governing Board doled out their space – after ditching most of the “new process” they had to avoid VPN violations, they tried it using an older method. What do you know, it worked! From the audio of the meeting I listened to, it seemed kind of arbitrary the first time around and people seemed confused over the whole process (with Rep. Krull being a notable case of said confusion) but it’s good to see this has served as a nice learning experience for the group. And, as usual, Gosselin felt vindicated in his assessment.

-Student Council gets into fights, fights small battles, dismisses sensible legislation: So, there’s been a lot more going on with Student Council than usual, but as a run down:

• They got the Union naming vote onto the ballot! Unfortunately, the Union/ASM hybrid committee tasked with choosing the finalists picked some really bland ones. Don’t want to offend, do we? More on that later.
• Chair Tyler Junger wants to make sure ASM funds don’t get raided again (for those who don’t remember, UW took about $180K from ASM to comply with the state budget theft). Rep. Max Love would like to look into suing the University and getting that money back. At the very least, he’d like to point out that UW should not have raided ASM funds as they didn’t apply. (or were strictly prohibited from these raids) Junger says it’s a bad idea to sue because it could either save us from future raids or give precedent for raiding funds in the future. One’s a gamble, the other is a safe bet. Thoughts? I know I need to actually look into this further tonight.
• On a far less important note, Junger was rather upset that Student Judiciary switched around seats in Student Council: According to this, one seat from Education will be transferred to the graduate school. (anyone want to write me in?) SJ has precedent for doing this, but Junger thinks that opens the door to more law-making from SJ. In an e-mail to me in response to my article this week, he said this:

For the record, SJ being able to make ASM law should be hugely disturbing to students.  There’s a reason the legislature is elected and the judiciary is appointed; it’s council’s job to make the rules and SJ’s job to interpret them.  When SJ decides to start making rules on their own, there’s not a way to stop it unless you nip it in the bud early; otherwise they can claim “precedent” for creating what is, according to the ASM constitution, law.

I’m the head of the legislature.  That’s our job.  Banal task this is not.

Fair enough, it probably isn’t something SJ should be doing. But is SJ making any other orders of a similar variety? Or they creating new committees? Are they moving money around? Is there any indication they might do so after this? Probably not. This confusion probably came from the fact that the student election commission is housed under SJ, so it must be their area, right? Probably not. If Junger wants to fight the battle, get it written into the bylaws, but let’s not get out of hand. Students should not be disturbed by this, because it has extremely little to do with them. Just like most of ASM.

• Written Responsibility Act proposed by Erik Paulson would have had committee chairs give monthly written reports to Student Council. It failed. One reason? Apparently someone said the Badger Herald does a decent job on their own. Flattering, but, that’s not the point. Second reason? Well, Melissa Hanley better hope Adelaide misinterpreted her statements. Because this pisses me off more than anything in the last few weeks: “Shared Governance Committee Chair Melissa Hanley said sometimes she has had too much committee work on her plate, and she did not have time to write a report.” WRONG. Even if it was a bulletpointed list of things that happened, you should have time to get a few paragraphs together explaining what’s going on. I have to run a newspaper, take graduate classes, write this blog, fend off controversy and try and maintain a relationship with my girlfriend. And I STILL write a monthly report to our board of directors. And it’s mandated. There is NO EXCUSE. If you can’t stop to write a summary of your activities, then maybe you’re not cut out for this job.

But hey, not everything ASM related is screwed up! Carl Fergus, Adam Johnson and Tom Templeton headed out to D.C. to help push for a bill reforming student loans. Unfortunately, it seems as if they’ve been sidelined by United States Student Association, who pushed to get the bill tacked onto the health care bill (which happened), which apparently looked closer to passing than the student loan bill on it’s own. Still, good to see they’re trying to build a Big 10 system of student advocates.

Hey, remember that whole ASM questionnaire thing I was trying to set up? Well, it’s all going up today. Promise. Only got about a third of council to respond, but the responses are interesting, if nothing else. We’re back in business, baby!