2008 Woodie Awards
Who knew? It finally decided to become a Senate
DUSTIN LAPRAY and CHARLOTTE TAYLOR
Arbiter Staff
Issue date: 3/1/07 Section: News
- Page 1 of 1
For the first time in the Spring 2007 semester, the Associated Students of Boise State University Senate had a full table in the Forum in the Student Union Building. All but one of the senators was present, that was engineering Sen. Jim Musser.
Sen. Bakh Mirkasimov asked Senate Pro Tempore Amy Ortmann why Sen. Musser has been missing meetings.
“I will make no formal announcement [on his status],” Sen. Ortmann said. But the rest of the senators were present and, to the surprise of the gallery, the Senate did work. It introduced four pieces of legislation - three bills and one resolution.
Legislation
The Ways and Means Committee introduced a Senate Bill which would augment the conflict of interest policy within ASBSU. The augmented policy would comply with the policy written and followed by the BSU administration.
The Bill states that since students working for ASBSU earn service awards, they, too, fall under the jurisdiction of the BSU administration and hence should follow the same policy.
“The best way to approach that would be to follow the same rules the university follows,” Sen. Terry Gorseth said.
“Sen. Gorseth, could you nutshell it for us?” Sen. Ryan Cooper said.
The Senate became confused because the bill referred to BSU Policy Manual Section 5, Policy 5040 and did not include what that policy was. The Senate chose to move the bill to second reading Tuesday and later moved it to third reading Thursday, on the condition that Sen. Gorseth bring the aforementioned policy to the table.
Out of the Blue
The Senate was again blessed by the presence of Sen. Cyndi Blue, who came back from her leave of absence with a Fast-Tracked resolution in hand. The resolution was introduced late and marked “Fast Track.” By fast-tracking a resolution, the Senate can bypass many of its regular rules of order. Said documents need not enter committee hearings and can be introduced and passed in one meeting.
The resolution would costs BSU nothing, and it was only the tenth introduced this year.
It’s purpose is to “give voice to students and citizens of Idaho concerned that there is no hate crime law in Idaho.”
This resolution intends to be packaged along with another from the Faculty Senate (which Sen. Blue said she had spoken to twice and it was on board) and taken to the state legislature to help encourage legislators to pass hate crime legislation.
“The state of Idaho is only one of two which does not proclaim that it has a hate crime law,” Sen. Blue said. “This is something that most states are starting to deal with. Anything that is to be done must done immediately.”
The Senate was wary about passing the resolution Tuesday, since it hadn’t seen the legislation until the meeting started and had not taken the time to read it.
“This is something that the senate has worked on for a while,” Sen. Mary Dawson said. “This is a well-researched document.”
The Senate took a short recess and after a heated debate, removed the “Fast Track” status from the legislation. After further debate, it was moved into the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which met Wednesday. The Senate actually had to “Call the Question” and did a roll-call vote to move the legislation.
“I understand that a lot of work was done on this,” Sen. Jennifer Stolley said. “I’m not arguing that, however I am not familiar with it.”
The legislation was written last December amid the crisis resulting in the Not On Our Campus Rally. That week a student received a death threat because of his race and another reported false claims that he had been assaulted because of his sexual orientation. The report was a hoax, but hate crimes do occur. The rally was debased because of the rescinded claim, but the legislation is in the Senate.
More information on this resolution and the status of the Senate will be printed in Monday’s Arbiter issue.
Veterans’ Memorial
The first bill introduced at Tuesday’s meeting was one that would allocate $10,000 from the Senate Discretionary Fund to the reconstruction of a Veterans’ Memorial on campus. The original memorial was demolished to make room for an addition to the Albertson Library.
Nearly every year since, the Senate has passed resolutions asking the administration to rebuild the memorial. The bill, proposed by Senator Katie Jo Rupert and Senator Britton Holdaway, cites the recent loss of three BSU students serving in Iraq as the catalyst behind this proposal.
The new memorial would be a part of the SUB expansion, taking place through the next two years. The cost of the reconstruction is estimated at close to $30,000. A donor had originally offered to fund the entire cost of the project but backed out for unmentioned reasons. The unnamed donor is now only partially funding the construction of the memorial, leaving Senate members searching for other methods of fundraising. The bill was moved to the Budget and Finance Committee for consideration.
Harnessing the power of wind
The Senate also introduced a bill that would help finance the construction of a wind-power generator at Morrison Hall. The generator would have an ecological impact on the BSU campus. The bill asks the Senate to spend $1,000 on the wind-power-generated residence Hall. More on this story will be printed in Monday’s Arbiter issue.
Sen. Bakh Mirkasimov asked Senate Pro Tempore Amy Ortmann why Sen. Musser has been missing meetings.
“I will make no formal announcement [on his status],” Sen. Ortmann said. But the rest of the senators were present and, to the surprise of the gallery, the Senate did work. It introduced four pieces of legislation - three bills and one resolution.
Legislation
The Ways and Means Committee introduced a Senate Bill which would augment the conflict of interest policy within ASBSU. The augmented policy would comply with the policy written and followed by the BSU administration.
The Bill states that since students working for ASBSU earn service awards, they, too, fall under the jurisdiction of the BSU administration and hence should follow the same policy.
“The best way to approach that would be to follow the same rules the university follows,” Sen. Terry Gorseth said.
“Sen. Gorseth, could you nutshell it for us?” Sen. Ryan Cooper said.
The Senate became confused because the bill referred to BSU Policy Manual Section 5, Policy 5040 and did not include what that policy was. The Senate chose to move the bill to second reading Tuesday and later moved it to third reading Thursday, on the condition that Sen. Gorseth bring the aforementioned policy to the table.
Out of the Blue
The Senate was again blessed by the presence of Sen. Cyndi Blue, who came back from her leave of absence with a Fast-Tracked resolution in hand. The resolution was introduced late and marked “Fast Track.” By fast-tracking a resolution, the Senate can bypass many of its regular rules of order. Said documents need not enter committee hearings and can be introduced and passed in one meeting.
The resolution would costs BSU nothing, and it was only the tenth introduced this year.
It’s purpose is to “give voice to students and citizens of Idaho concerned that there is no hate crime law in Idaho.”
This resolution intends to be packaged along with another from the Faculty Senate (which Sen. Blue said she had spoken to twice and it was on board) and taken to the state legislature to help encourage legislators to pass hate crime legislation.
“The state of Idaho is only one of two which does not proclaim that it has a hate crime law,” Sen. Blue said. “This is something that most states are starting to deal with. Anything that is to be done must done immediately.”
The Senate was wary about passing the resolution Tuesday, since it hadn’t seen the legislation until the meeting started and had not taken the time to read it.
“This is something that the senate has worked on for a while,” Sen. Mary Dawson said. “This is a well-researched document.”
The Senate took a short recess and after a heated debate, removed the “Fast Track” status from the legislation. After further debate, it was moved into the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which met Wednesday. The Senate actually had to “Call the Question” and did a roll-call vote to move the legislation.
“I understand that a lot of work was done on this,” Sen. Jennifer Stolley said. “I’m not arguing that, however I am not familiar with it.”
The legislation was written last December amid the crisis resulting in the Not On Our Campus Rally. That week a student received a death threat because of his race and another reported false claims that he had been assaulted because of his sexual orientation. The report was a hoax, but hate crimes do occur. The rally was debased because of the rescinded claim, but the legislation is in the Senate.
More information on this resolution and the status of the Senate will be printed in Monday’s Arbiter issue.
Veterans’ Memorial
The first bill introduced at Tuesday’s meeting was one that would allocate $10,000 from the Senate Discretionary Fund to the reconstruction of a Veterans’ Memorial on campus. The original memorial was demolished to make room for an addition to the Albertson Library.
Nearly every year since, the Senate has passed resolutions asking the administration to rebuild the memorial. The bill, proposed by Senator Katie Jo Rupert and Senator Britton Holdaway, cites the recent loss of three BSU students serving in Iraq as the catalyst behind this proposal.
The new memorial would be a part of the SUB expansion, taking place through the next two years. The cost of the reconstruction is estimated at close to $30,000. A donor had originally offered to fund the entire cost of the project but backed out for unmentioned reasons. The unnamed donor is now only partially funding the construction of the memorial, leaving Senate members searching for other methods of fundraising. The bill was moved to the Budget and Finance Committee for consideration.
Harnessing the power of wind
The Senate also introduced a bill that would help finance the construction of a wind-power generator at Morrison Hall. The generator would have an ecological impact on the BSU campus. The bill asks the Senate to spend $1,000 on the wind-power-generated residence Hall. More on this story will be printed in Monday’s Arbiter issue.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Britton J. Holdaway
posted 3/01/07 @ 10:18 AM MST
A point of clarification: I am no longer an ASBSU senator. I resigned earlier this semester to be the lobbyist for ASBSU.
Britton J. Holdaway
posted 3/02/07 @ 9:18 AM MST
I would like to thank the ASBSU Senate for passing the partial funding bill for the Veterans Memorial. As a student who has been intimately involved in this project for two years, and as the vice-chair of the Student Union Board of Governors, I feel like I can speak on behalf of the memorial project team when I say how appreciative we are of the support ASBSU has given us. (Continued…)
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