Senators’ status stand in limbo
April 28, 2005
Four Government of the Student Body senators no longer report to a specific constituency council.
The Inter-Residence Hall Association recently voted to dissolve the Richardson Court Association and the Union Drive Association. RCA is scheduled to be disbanded May 6, and UDA was officially dissolved April 15.
Along with the closing of Towers, that leaves Ryan Doll, Towers Residence Association senator, Ehren Whigham, RCA senator, Katherine Lundberg, RCA senator, and Peter Finzell, UDA senator, without any constituency council which to report.
Greg Shepherd, GSB speaker of the senate, said the senate is in the process of finding a way to reorganize GSB constituency councils.
“The way I look at it, it’s a special circumstance. How often do you see Towers destroyed?” He said. “It’s just going to take some reorganization.”
There was an attempt to introduce legislation at the last meeting that would allow the senators to report to IRHA if there were any questions.
“The bill was brought up to clear some confusion,” Shepherd said.
The senate decided that the bill was out of order because of complications within GSB bylaws and constitution, as bylaws cannot be changed temporarily.
“To do it and do it right we need a bylaw change,” he said. “This is something we will address in the fall.”
Drew Larson, GSB business senator and former IRHA president, said he voted against the legislation because it did not comply with the bylaws.
“The way it was worded and the way it was set up did not meet with the rules we need to go by,” he said.
Larson said he believes there is a consensus on the senate that something needs to be done to fix the situation.
“On the whole, people realize that the constitution does not recognize the way people want to be represented anymore,” Larson said.
He said the senate needs to look at which constituency council the senators report to, and if GSB will continue to recognize RCA and UDA as constituencies, as students will still live in the association’s residence halls.
“At least until next semester I would say I am representing UDA,” Finzell said.
He said he was told to start reporting to IRHA meetings, but does not know when and where these meetings take place.
Finzell said these issues will be addressed at the next senate meeting, which is the first Wednesday of the fall semester.
Shepherd said someone could go through the process of expelling any one of the members who do not have a constituency to report to from the council.
This process would bring up a vote by senate to remove them from the senate.