One of two Government of the Student Body amendments that caused an uproar last week over funding for the Big Eight Conference on Black Student Government has been junked by its author, Senator John Hamilton.

At last Wednesday’s GSB meeting, the proposed amendments to a bill allocating $5,000 to the conference prompted heated confrontations between GSB senators and conference officials.

Hamilton said he spoke with several members of the Iowa Legislature and discovered that once a bill has been signed, as this one has been by GSB President Adam Gold, it cannot be amended or reconsidered.

The only way to change the bill is through new legislation, Hamilton said. “I’m not changing my view. It’s just that I have to follow the rules,” Hamilton said.

The author of the other amendment that calls for a reduction in funding, Senator Mark Nimmer, said he has no plans to withdraw his amendment.

“Unless I can find a parliamentary reason why I can’t do this, I intend to follow through with my amendment,” Nimmer said. “My version is to totally eliminate the allocation for transportation. This would lower the total allocation to $2,500 from $5,000.”

Nimmer said Gold has pressured him to withdraw his amendment. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for him to ask me to withdraw it,” Nimmer said.

Gold said he did ask Nimmer to withdraw his amendment, but said he had good intentions in making the request. “Yes, I made a request for him to drop his amendment. I was trying to defuse this situation and I felt that that was the most reasonable way to do this,” Gold said.

The amendment will be debated at Wednesday’s meeting. Hamilton’s amendment called on conference officials to return profits to GSB.

Several senators have begun work to insure similar problems don’t come up again. Senators Hamilton, Marcia Johnson, Jamey Hansen, Dawn Haynes and Yasmin Blackburn are working on a bylaw change that will call on organizations who make money on an event to return a portion of the profits to GSB, up to the amount allocated.

Blackburn said the change will make future funding situations smoother.

“I see this as a way of fixing some problems right now before they become worse,” Blackburn said. “And this change should stop what I saw as an inevitable blow-up on this campus.”

The bylaw modification is still in its preliminary stages.