On Sept. 19, ASUW held their weekly meeting to perform their Green-Dot training and to discuss multiple new bills. The meeting was called to order at 7:08 p.m. and after the approval of minutes and the agenda, the general forum was opened.
The counsel welcomed Shelly Schaef from the Green Dot Department to provide the senators with a training presentation. Schaef discussed different situations and the possible preventative actions that students can take part in to recognize and stop harassment.
After the Green Dot presentation, Old Business was brought to the floor and several bills were discussed and debated on.
The first bill under analysis was SB # 2892, which brought attention to the lack of an official recognition to germane a speaker in the ASUW documents. To germane a speaker is to point out that whatever they are speaking about does not pertain to the current discussion of the meeting, and though the counsel has used this term in the past, their bylaws and procedural statements have not had an official representation and authorization of this practice.
Tensions were high during the discussion of this bill, and at the completion of the heated debate, the bill failed with a close vote.
The counsel also discussed Senate Bill #2894, which concerned omnibus bills and the Sole Subject Rule under ASUW legislation. The bill virtually stated that omnibus bills, which are pieces of legislation that address a series of issues and are usually very long and complicated, are very difficult for students to comprehend and for senators to discuss.
In other words, the issue with omnibus bills is that they, “degrade the transparency that ASUW needs to have […] through obscuring the true nature of a bill and/or being far too long for the average Student-at-Large to plausibly comprehend,” according to lines 13-15 of SB #2894.
The legislation calls for omnibus bills to be separated into several bills to increase transparency and general effectiveness of the bills. This legislation was passed with a unanimous vote.
The senators considered SB #2896 which examines the lack of transparency of ASUW and its proceedings.
Senator Artemis Langford, the author of the bill states in the legislation that ASUW has the, “[…] responsibility to inform constituents of [UW] and be 100% transparent and maintaining good government policies . . .”
The bill was tentatively tabled for further consideration and so that any amendments can be made; however, the bill is still in consideration.
Under New Business, two new bills were proposed: SB #2897 and SB #2898.
SB #2897 states that the College Council created in the 109th administration is out of date and needs to be revised to be relevant to the current ASUW system.
SB #2898 concerns the offer extended by Erik Kahl, the Union director, to move the current ASUW headquarters office space to a larger room in the Union. The new conference room is in need of some renovations; however, the costs will be covered by the Union.
The next ASUW meeting will be Tuesday, Sept. 26 at 7:00 p.m.
