Alright, so this is a debate between Chynna Haas of the Campus Women’s Center and Jeff Wright of ASM and the Constitutional Committee.?

First thing to notice before I get into this: The vote is next week – Feb 23 and 24. Now, the opening statements went by before I could actually get this up and running, so I’ll summarize brief points there: Jeff Wright emphasizes the point that ASM doesn’t really have any effectiveness right now (either in elections or governance) and that this would.?

Chynna Haas makes the point that the new Constitution would dissolve the grassroots effectiveness,threaten student funding streams and put too much representative power in the hands of an executive.?

On a side note:Don’t expect a rigid structure, as WUD doesn’t seem to have a real grasp of how to structure a debate. Had to ask from the audience.?

Yeah! 5:17 – First question: How are student groups affected by the new Constitution? \ Chynna: This puts funding streams in general because it puts Viewpoint Neutrality in jeopardy. If the president vetos a budget, it goes to conference committee – 3 from executive, 3 from appropriations, 3 from Student Senate. But the problem is that the Executive can appoint to appropriations, which would give the president far more power in conference committee.?

If the fee is misallocated and the president vetos and conference committee can’t work it out, it goes to the Chancellor and the “flawed” budget goes through. Checks and balances aren’t there.?

5:19 – Jeff – ?I’m going to pull a Palin here and not directly answer the question right away. Addressing Chynna – had all sorts of feedback sessions, different targeted meetings, collected over 400 comments and used a software program to systematically sort this data. These concerns weren’t brought up until the very end.

If there is a politically motivated precedent, they have to justify that move. Chynna – Financial Code doesn’t address this in the Constitution, it’s the bylaws. You’re not voting on the bylaws. Next Question : Power of the executive? Will it work? Could it fail? <\p>

5:24 – Jeff – There are some things that could falter, but there are protections against a bad president. President can’t take disciplinary action against individual members, can’t affect GSSF groups in their budgets, can’t interfere with the duties of other elected officials. Senate can institute a funding freeze on the executive – can’t pay your staff, won’t function effectively. Lowered the threshold on impeachment from 3/4 to 2/3. Executive picks are confirmed by the senate. And can repeal all executive orders.

5:26 – Chynna – The executive cannot represent all people here, background isn’t the same as the issues were working on. Individual has a lot of power, appoint a cabinet. I think it’s a bit of a conflict of interest to have those offices such as Student elections politicized. Takes 2/3 majority, difficult majority to impeach the president. Significant amount of influence over budget. Can’t take disciplinary action, but can get executive orders to retaliate.

Rebuttals – missed it do this horrible blogging software. It was about turnout and other things. BLAH.

Question – How will this affect funding streams?

5:30 – Chynna – Viewpoint neutrality helps with fair and unbiased manner, this undermines this process, no place to really give their objections because they can’t talk to them and see their personal reactions…(uhhh…so we can read facial tics here?) Why are we going through this entire process if we’re not fixing it and making it the best document we can make it. Asked for 6 month notification of changes and they didn’t listen, only put it in the bylaws. Need to revamp it for effective for student orgs.

5:32 – Jeff – we created this financial code as a midway point between the Constitution and bylaws. They’ll have the same timelines, criteria, etc. However, the difference here is that the president has to approve the budget too. And it gets sent to conference committee if it’s vetoed. And it gets sent back. Protections against abuse. Can’t amend budgets. Only resides in appropriations.

Chynna – if it ain’t broke, why fix it? (BECAUSE EVERYTHING ELSE IS!) But it’s concerning that it wasn’t in the constitution with timelines.

Jeff – Why put it in the constitution when timelines and circumstances change? It’s in the financial code!

Question: What should be the roll of ASM?

Jeff – it’s to represent students, be advocates and manage the budgets. Allocations of seg fees, the processes have not changed, shared gov just appoints people itself now, this would have some oversight. Grassroots committees will still exist, just in the exec. Branch which makes it more responsible. The projects grassroots committee work on now aren’t salient and don’t really work. Because they’re not vetted. I would rather have ideas that take a little longer to develop and have a longer lifespan then have the ideas decided upon at one or two meetings and don’t survive.

Chynna – Well, the old structure worked fine, it’s just that they weren’t grassroots organizers. Now that’s fine, but the executive committee isn’t the right way to do it.

Jeff – We’re just changing the leadership of this and putting some more bureaucracy to make sure it works smoothly..

Chynna – bureaucracy slows things down.

Question: How will this effect the grassroots committee

Chynna – explains the flow chart. Looking at the new structure, they don’t know how the free-form style actually works and are making it a mock government rather than an activist component. Less democratic style, top down as opposed to bottom up. Diversity of voices on Vote No side, not on the Vote Yes side. The New Constitution won’t protect these voices in committees. It might get things done, but it doesn’t get at the heart of campus climate.

Jeff – dangerous to suggest the Vote Yes side doesn’t empathize with diverse groups on campus. The problem is that these gets away from the real point and that’s why you have runaway projects. The President is emphasizing, not shouting people down. They can’t take positiions contrary to legislation from the Senate. The Senate ACTUALLY has the power.

Chynna – Basically, the structure right now is accountable to student council, the new constitution doesn’t make it work any better.

Jeff – the structure now makes sure that Student reps aren’t disenfranchised on shared gov.

Question and Answer time!

Johnny Tackett – how does this effect the voice of students like special and grad students.

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Jeff – this gives them more power.

Chynna – maybe it gives more power, but it’s really up to the students themselves.

Bureacracy and inefficiency?

Chynna – You know, it does take away line item veto from the current system, and that’s great, but now it has to go through all these different pillars. US gov was set up to slow things down so no rash action can happen, so why are WE slowing things down?

Jeff – while we are creating a separate body, it’s going to be more efficient. Agendas modeled after Common Council agenda, can register their own complaints.

Bylaws and Financial Code – what guarantee is there to the students that this is actually going to work?

Jeff – I find it hard to believe that people are going to go in and change the bylaws. We copy and pasted huge portions and there aren’t a great deal of changes. Chynna – there’s no way to actually no that these bylaws are going to go into effect next year. I value his idealism, but It depends on the individuals.You don’t have to change the entire document