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.
