Spring Break
ASCSU vote highlights incompetence
Sean Reed
Issue date: 2/23/09 Section: Opinion
The boneheads are at it again.
Last week, in a 9-7 vote (nine for, seven against), the Associated Students of CSU axed a resolution endorsing Interim CSU President Tony Frank for the permanent job because they failed to get a majority vote in favor.
Sound counterintuitive? That's because it is.
Thankfully, several sources within ASCSU, including President Taylor Smoot and Sen. Tim Hole of the Liberal Arts College had a simple explanation: There were five abstaining votes.
And as ridiculous as it may sound, that's why it failed.
The resolution's failure stems from a confusing and, based on the conversations I had in the ASCSU office, extremely irksome ASCSU Supreme Court Ruling in late 2006 in the case of Schrader v. Conrad.
In the complaint, Sen. Ben Schrader challenged then-Vice President Sadie Conrad's interpretation that two-thirds of all voting members -- present, absent or abstaining -- were required to vote in favor of a change to the ASCSU bylaws that had prevented a resolution's passage.
He complained on the grounds that a quorum -- that is, two-thirds -- of senators was present at the meeting in the complaint and it is never explicitly mentioned in the ASCSU bylaw that "two-thirds of the entire senate must vote yes for bylaw changing legislation to pass," according to the court's opinion.
The Supreme Court, however, sided with Conrad, but on a very shaky argument.
They stated that, within the ASCSU Constitution and its bylaws, "the term 'senate' or 'the senate' refers exclusively to the entire elected body of the ASCSU Senate, not the portion of senators present at a given meeting," and, therefore, Conrad was correct to deem the resolution a failure, even though it carried two-thirds of the present voters.
This, of course, is a very loose and overly simplistic reading of the ASCSU Constitution, which, despite what the Supreme Court asserts in the latter half of the opinion, is very clearly answered by the shadow constitution of ASCSU, "Robert's Rules of Order."
Last week, in a 9-7 vote (nine for, seven against), the Associated Students of CSU axed a resolution endorsing Interim CSU President Tony Frank for the permanent job because they failed to get a majority vote in favor.
Sound counterintuitive? That's because it is.
Thankfully, several sources within ASCSU, including President Taylor Smoot and Sen. Tim Hole of the Liberal Arts College had a simple explanation: There were five abstaining votes.
And as ridiculous as it may sound, that's why it failed.
The resolution's failure stems from a confusing and, based on the conversations I had in the ASCSU office, extremely irksome ASCSU Supreme Court Ruling in late 2006 in the case of Schrader v. Conrad.
In the complaint, Sen. Ben Schrader challenged then-Vice President Sadie Conrad's interpretation that two-thirds of all voting members -- present, absent or abstaining -- were required to vote in favor of a change to the ASCSU bylaws that had prevented a resolution's passage.
He complained on the grounds that a quorum -- that is, two-thirds -- of senators was present at the meeting in the complaint and it is never explicitly mentioned in the ASCSU bylaw that "two-thirds of the entire senate must vote yes for bylaw changing legislation to pass," according to the court's opinion.
The Supreme Court, however, sided with Conrad, but on a very shaky argument.
They stated that, within the ASCSU Constitution and its bylaws, "the term 'senate' or 'the senate' refers exclusively to the entire elected body of the ASCSU Senate, not the portion of senators present at a given meeting," and, therefore, Conrad was correct to deem the resolution a failure, even though it carried two-thirds of the present voters.
This, of course, is a very loose and overly simplistic reading of the ASCSU Constitution, which, despite what the Supreme Court asserts in the latter half of the opinion, is very clearly answered by the shadow constitution of ASCSU, "Robert's Rules of Order."
Viewing Comments 1 - 6 of 8
jimmy
posted 2/23/09 @ 8:21 AM MST
Well done!
Different Ram Alum 2001
posted 2/23/09 @ 2:17 PM MST
Wait, what? This makes no sense. (Both the article and the rulings...but it's not the article's fault, it's that the rulings really, really make no sense. (Continued…)
Agreed
posted 2/23/09 @ 10:17 PM MST
Excellent work bringing this to light. We trust ASCSU to work in our best interests, but how are they supposed to get anything done with absurd bureaucratic red tape like this? Counting abstaining votes? Do they know what "abstain" means?
Emily
posted 2/25/09 @ 6:00 PM MST
9 does not constitute 2/3 (a quorum) of the votes cast (16). With 16 votes cast, a quorum would have required 11 "yes" votes. Therefore, regardless of how abstaining members were counted (unless you randomly decided to count 2 or more abstaining members as "yes" votes), the resolution would not have passed. (Continued…)
Emily
posted 2/25/09 @ 9:15 PM MST
9 yes votes/16 total votes not counting abstaining is still less than the 2/3 vote needed for a quorum. So what is the issue here?
Different Ram Alum 2001
posted 2/26/09 @ 11:18 AM MST
A quorum is the number of members of the body that must be present in order for the body to convene a meeting. If you lack a quorum, you can't convene a meeting for any purpose (with a couple of minor exceptions, like to set the time of the next meeting, I think). (Continued…)
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