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ASM approves constitution bylaw recommendation
Allows for a newly altered government to adopt next year
LUKAS KEAPPROTH/Herald photo
ASM Constitutional Committee Chair Jeff Wright discusses some last-minute changes to the bylaws Tuesday at the Student Activities Center.
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The Associated Students of Madison’s Constitutional Committee met Tuesday to finalize its proposed bylaws outlining a visionary recommendation for the future council if its new constitution is passed.
“We have no authority to approve them officially for the next session — our committee just recommends these bylaws for the first item that the next session should take up,” said SSFC Chair Kurt Gosselin. “We are still going to send this to Student Council, and it is likely they’ll approve it but either way this will be sent along to the next session should the constitution pass.”
Wright added the bylaws were created in “good faith” to address concerns from groups outside of ASM that questioned the setup of the government proposed in the new constitution.
“It was our attempt to give people a clue on how the government would get up and running,” Wright said.
According to Constitutional Committee Chair Jeff Wright, bylaws guiding the proposed executive committees were considerably limited at Tuesday’s meeting.
The executive committee would not have the power to affect the budgeting process of the finance or appropriations committees, for example, and would have no say in General Students Services Fund’s administration or budget expenditure.
The new bylaws also forbid the executive board from reallocating over $200 without senate approval and cannot interfere with “essential duties of elected ASM officials,” Wright said.
“We decided the senate would operate under a more streamlined process,” Wright added. “Anyone reading off a report will be relieved because we have taken a page out of the Madison City Council operating procedures.”
The committee also finalized the process of selecting the conference committee, and the student election chair and vice chair were granted two-year terms.
“Many of the items we put into the bylaws have addressed a lot of the concerns brought up through the process,” Gosselin said. “I’m hoping students react positively.”
In addition, students will have more opportunities to voice their opinions on items of consideration, according to Wright.
“We hope this allows for more participation throughout the meetings rather than only having time to speak at the very beginning,” Wright said.
The committee also created a cover letter for the bylaws to outline the major changes.
Gosselin voiced his confidence that students will react positively to the recommended bylaws.
“I think there were a number of positive changes and positive retentions from the old bylaws,” Gosselin said. “We wanted to keep as much of what worked previously as possible and put in improvements for what didn’t work as well.”
If nothing else, Gosselin said he hopes the presentation of the new bylaws will generate more student interest and result in greater voter turnout.
“It would be amazing to see a considerate amount of students at the polls,” Gosselin added. “If the [new bylaws] can facilitate this in any way it would definitely be a positive change.”
The bylaws will be posted for the public today at asmconstitution.wordpress.com.
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IP hash: 198d0e02
Wow—ASM has spent an entire year, or close to it tinkering with their own bureaucracy rather than actually doing something. No wonder so many people left! And no wonder so many people aren’t interested in ASM anymore.
If you want me to believe that ASM will change when the internal process changes, how about having leaders who seem interested in something other than getting themselves elected president…
IP hash: e90c90eb
That’s bullshit. What has ASM done in the past year? Well, they have lowered segregated fees, better defined funding streams which will make segregated fees more affordable in the long run, appointed 100+ students to shared governance committees, hosted 2 bookswaps, advocated for UW-Madison at UC and USSA, created a new press office which is now sending several press releases a week about ASM activities, opened the Student Activity Center (have you ever opened a building? do you have any idea how much work goes into that?), ASM leadership meets monthly with the Chancellor to talk about issues, they have piloted a program to make student organization events open to students with disabilities, provided hundreds of grants for student org events, and more.
To say that ASM has not done anything this year is blatantly false. There are a lot of areas they can improve in, no doubt, that is the purpose of this new constitution. But they have done stuff. P.S. I am not in ASM. I just get pissed when I read ignorant statements from students too lazy to get educated.
IP hash: f96360cf
ASM doesn’t “provide grants” or “give out money.” It’s just the administrative body that allocates and approves student seg fees—but it’s not actually “giving out” money, since the money is there for students to access. ASM just does it in accordance with the policies of the state, UW system, and increasingly, their own created policies. ASM allocates. If the new constitution and bylaws go into effect, they’ll do LESS allocating based on the needs of students and MORE determining what those needs are though a bid process.
I just don’t understand why we would want to vote for a constitution that essentially creates an all powerful president who is really just a lap dog for the administration. 33 student council seats are a more powerful force than one president, who will really just have power over students, not to do anything that betters student life. Vote NO. ASM student council chair and voice chair sat on the constitutional committee and RARELY WENT to meetings—and then VOTED to approve them. Based on what? Not knowing what was going on?
Read the proposed constitution. VOTE NO. Elect responsible leaders. RUN for office.