Opinion: Editorial

Necessary, but proper?

Last Monday, the Associated Students of Madison released the first draft of its new constitution to the student body via its blog. Our student representatives held listening sessions to discuss the document with the student body yesterday and will hold a second round on Oct.ober 14.

Although we hope non-ASM students will give their two cents on this 15-page foundation, given their well-documented attendance rate at ASM functions, we thought it might be helpful to put in our two cents.

First off, before addressing the feasibility of any article in this constitution, let us note that we share ASM’s love of the U.S. Constitution. We are, however, wary of emulating it to the degree that ASM has. Our student government seems to have modeled most of the language and some of the structure on our most revered national document — including the chuckle-worthy clause about the Chief of Staff serving “at the pleasure of the president.”

Article III, on non-discrimination, makes the mistake of denying funding to any group that might claim discrimination or exclusivity based on any possible differentiating characteristic known to man … or woman. Given the court cases waged by the Roman Catholic Foundation, they might run into some trouble on this one. Furthermore, their section on “Due Process” simply says that ASM members are guaranteed due process under the law, with absolutely no context to explain or justify the inclusion of that clause.

Luckily, these are problems that could easily be solved with some tinkering. And it must be noted there are bright spots in this constitution.

The inclusion of an executive branch, one of the main reasons for rewriting this constitution, is the anchor ASM has needed for quite some time. While the ASM chair and vice chair occasionally claim to be the de facto representatives of this organization, their actual involvement in the day-to-day operation of ASM is negligible. Even if Student Council fails to achieve anything of real consequence, the chair has no real power to lead them elsewhere. That changes with the new constitution, which gives the president the power to introduce legislation, veto legislation and organize a cabinet.

“The buck stops here” mentality is thankfully also applied to the legislative branch, now given a far more respectable name of Student Senate. Instead of simply hearing reports and marking them down in secretary notes few will ever read, petitions from the student body must be considered by the Student Senate, and legislation can be written to address these concerns.

That’s right, there is accountability. The only problem is there are too many people slated to be heold accountable.

In addition to the unnecessary number of Student Senators — 33, emulating our Wisconsin State Senate, no doubt — the constitution has allotted room for multiple subcommittees. In fact, the constitution blog has a rough draft of a flow chart outlining some of these committees, while noting “some of them may not ever even exist!” While we could certainly go into the redundancies inherent in matching subcommittees with cabinet posts — and shared governance committees — let’s leave it at this: Given ASM’s inability to achieve much of significance, the less time legislation remains in the hands of needless government entities, the better. Scrap the subcommittees and just have the whole Senate discuss potential legislation.

In fact, stick to the small stuff. While ASM may have visions of bureaucratic grandeur in their sights — do we really need nine justices on student judiciary? — keep the constitution basic and leave the rest to the bylaws. Otherwise, we may end up with the same bloated system we tried to jettison. There is no need for additions.

Well, except for one. We did notice ASM left out a clause on the process for disbandment.

Just a thought.