The Tearful Tirade

Only in Hollywood or Vegas do honeymoons last shorter of than that between the Gold Administration and the 61st Session.

A couple of crazy kids, in love with the University and with high hopes for each other, dreamt big, their eyes fixes into an unclear future, a future free of limits.

That is, except for Checks and Balances.

The analogy can only go so far, however, because their story ends with a tongue lashing from the Executive.

Best. Marriage. Ever.



Are Senators to be expected to stand idly by while being ridiculed for exercising their constitutional powers and fulfilling the duties to which they swore themselves?

No tears or choked up voice will ever convince us to turn back on what is most important- our Honor.

We Do What We Are Charged To Do...

Well...I think that this past meeting was a great meeting. We said goodbye to a great 60th Session (even though we didn't override the veto for the open records) and said hello to a great 61st Session. Many people may feel that Senate did not do their job correctly this evening, however, I believe that the Senate conducted itself in a respectful, dignified and parliamentary way that reflects good upon the Senate. We did what the Constitution of SGA allows us to do. We scrutizines, questioned, and discussed, and made decisions to better the students. The idea that trust was betrayed is a ridiculous arguement and I stand behind every decision that I made and will support every other Senator in theirs. I think that this is a great start to the year, as we have shown that we are going to ask questions and not be pushed around. At the confirmations last Spring for the 60th Session, we did not ask questions or debate against individuals. We can look at the past executive council and see that if we would have, and not confirmed some individuals, then we could have possiblity stopped problems before they happened. I think the senate decision shows that we are not going to wait to be retroactive, but be proactive in the decisions and the confirmations that we make!

Keep up the good work! I know this is going to be a great year!

McLovin' v. Election Commission- Update

A Northside Senate write in candidate came into the office asking if all his votes were counted. He contended that his nick-name "McLovin'" should be counted in his vote count. There is a good chance that if these votes are counted he would have the 11 votes to make it to the run-off.

I only hope and pray that if he writes a case against the Election Commission it be titled McLovin V Election Commission.

Update- No, I did not make this up. You can ask Tyler, Landon, and Chris (Gilchrist guy). This happened, no joke.

Election Commissioner Bathman Removed

At 9:00 am this morning Jack Bathman was removed from his position as Election Commissioner.

I will update this with more info later.

SBP candidates are human...

I am tired of hearing about how great the candidates are. I know each to have many quality traits. I however know each to be mortal as some of you may not believe. I would like to point out where each lacks. With the exception of platform, it is a given that all SBP candidates are required to have no substantial platform and overall just repeat a few buzzwords over and over. We will go alphabetical by last name.

Nick Adams- Keeps talking about communication and how hes been a great communication chair of Exec. This is crap, Senate approached Exec during SSFAB voting to get the Comm team to go out and get student opinion. The Exec Communication team and Conner said no. If any member of SGA wants to get information from the Student Body the Comm team should be excited to help. I suspect that the questions were going to be about Greek life and Nick did not want himself associated with anything Anti-Greek.

Terry Dike- If I understand correctly Terry is a member of the track team. I know that almost all athletic teams practice un-Godly amounts each week. This hold especially true for our excellent track team that continues to improve and get better. No doubt this will be true next year when we are hosting the NCAA championships in track. How can we expect an SBP to be practicing each day and still devoted wholly to the position. Granted, I am not sure if he plans on running (unintended pun) next year but I do believe he has another year or eligibility.

Mark Gold- Besides being the candidate with the most glaring absence of a platform (I know I promised not to speak of this seeing as none have a coherent platform but his lack of a platform is exceptionally impressive) Mark has virtually no experience in the field of legislation or execution of legislation. Mark has no experience in any real governmental position. He was chair of Fish Aides. Fish Aides is simply an SBP machine that produces ideal candidates each year and more times than not they win. They serve no real purpose other than this, at least not that I can see.

Dustin McKnight- I will admit he is the candidate that I know least about. He worked with Rich Pontious in Student Services this last year. As much good as Dustin did I can guarantee that Rich did 99% of the work. The fact that I know little about him may be a good thing or a bad thing (I am sure he considers it a good thing).

Ryan Rieger- Ryan has not put his name on any significant or controversial legislation this session. Ryan does a fine job handling himself in Senate but this glaring hole really makes me wonder about him. I sincerely doubt he supported the way every single piece of legislation was handled and so I wish he would have spoken up a bit more. This lack of stances and lack of controversial debate makes me hesitate a bit.

Jody Sanmuen- Jody is awesome, I really like the girl. However she was elected to the position of Northside Senate and resigned to take over an RHA position. As noble as this is I do think that she should have remained in her position that the students elected her to.

I mean none of this as disrespect to any of the candidates. I simply mean to put this out there as these people are human and are not that great of candidates. As much as I like these people on a personal level I do not think any of them are very qualified for the position of SBP. I do not think anyone on campus this year is qualified either (except maybe Balla Jim Reed). Whenever you get elected to a leadership position you are never qualified at first, however in the position you begin to shine and take control of the responsibilities. In conclusion, I think they all suck equally and a bunch. Whoever you vote for will not accomplish anything and it will continue the cycle of slouch SBPs (Conner don't sell yourself short, you are a tremendous slouch :-).

Candidates or staff, feel free to respond I could care less. Nobody reads this anyways.

Few updates...

Sorry for not posting recently. I have been working on something really big and you all will probably find out about it not next Senate meeting but the next. It has little to do with SGA but some of you may get a kick out of it, I know at least one Senator will be very happy about it.

For non-senators, nothing new or exciting has happened in Senate the last two meetings. Just everybody desperately trying to get Exec council positions for next year by sucking up to the SBP candidates that they think could possibly win (suckups you know exactly who you are).

JCourt and EC stuff- I won my case declaring that Jake Bathman's actions were against the Election Regulations. Funny that the one person who is supposed to know the Election Regulations has screwed up several times. The Regulations are really not that hard to understand, it probably requires a fifth grade reading level at best.

Moving on, Jake is once again refusing to release information that belongs to the Student Body. I was approached by a concerned campaign worker about a potential JCourt case and I was asked to help him look into something. I then asked Jake to let me see the midterm campaign finance reports (information that I have been allowed to see each of the last two elections) and Jake refused. This is not the first time he has refused to release the Student Body's property. If you remember the first JCourt case I filed it was for the release of information that he was illegally holding back as well. The court granted my mandamus and Jake was ordered to release the information.

I really do not know why he continues to act like this but it is getting ridiculous, his actions are childish at best. I did not like all the decisions of the last two Election Commissioners but at least I had respect for them. They always had sound reasoning behind their decisions and were always backed up by the rules. All too often the current Election Commissioner will do something stupid and then say the reason for it was "because I said so."

Jess, Alden, Austin, and some other guy all filed cases to get back on the ballot. Alden and Austin won their cases. Jess did not win although he probably had the strongest case simply because he did not present it properly. You must always go into JCourt prepared and know exactly what the Court wants to hear. He didn't and paid the price for it. It is a shame because although I do not agree with him that much he is a catalytic character in the Senate.

Edit- I suck at spelling. Thanks Michele

Legislation for Tonight

No news yet. I will update this and post during the first part of the meeting if I can find a computer.

Clemens v Election Commission 2008-2

JCourt once again ruled in my favor against the Election Commission. Any candidates that did not file legally shall not be on the ballot. The defense never disputed the claim that he had broken his own election regulations, instead argued that I could not file case against the Commission. If you want to know more about this just let me know.

Performance Review Reasons and Findings

Sorry for getting this out so late, I had a test yesterday that was very important for me to pass. These are simplified versions of the performance review reasons and the findings of the performance review committee.

Poor Managerial Effectiveness- Citing unprecedentedly poor turnout for spring filing a Senator submitted a formal complaint against the Election Commissioner's ability to manage the Elections. Only forty people filed for a total of sixty spots in Senate. This is the fault of the Election Commissioner. If he had spent more money on advertising on filing instead of wanting air planes to fly over head of campus during voting days maybe we would have a few more candidates. The committee agreed and stated that "the lower percentage of fully contested senate races indicates that the efforts made by the election commission to publicize filing were not sufficient. This failure falls squarely at the feet of the election commissioner in the opinion of this committee."

A Violation of Current Regulations- Simple really, the person charged with upholding the Election Regulations has decided not to. The Election Commissioner has allowed candidates to file outside of designated times for filing. This is most likely to try and cover up a small amount of his failure to properly advertise the filing process. The Committee found that "on the matter of alleged violations of the election regulations, the committee finds the election commissioner’s intentions to be noble, but unfortunately inconsistent with the election regulations."

Inability to Correct Problems in a timely fashion- The Election Commissioner submitted changes to the Election Regulations during filing days. There is no excuse for this. This is simply laziness. The committee states "Much of the blame for this failure falls at the feet of the election commissioner."

Willful and purposeful disobedience of a Writ of Mandamus handed down by the Judicial Court- This was my complaint. The committee found it as invalid. The committee saw this as the Election Commissioner taking "one class day" to fulfill this obligation. I agree with this however it seems like the entire story was not conveyed to the committee. The judgment against the Election Commissioner was handed down on Friday. The Election Commissioner was ordered to release all information immediately. This did not happen. In fact the Election Commissioner only released the names after it was made apparent that he would be removed from office if he were not to release them on Monday. It seems like I should have waited a bit longer to make it apparent that the information was to be released or repercussions would follow. It is my opinion that the Election Commissioner never would have released the information required if it was not apparent he was going to be removed. I also have reasonable suspicion that the Election Commissioner has not made all information ordered within Clemens v. Election Commission 2008-1. However I cannot prove that because the only person who knows the truth is the Election Commissioner.

If you have any questions about the Performance Review contact the Rules and Regulations Chairman Zach Whitehurst (zachary.whitehurst@tamu.edu). If you have any questions about the performance of the Election Commissioner you should contact Conner Prochaska at sbp@tamu.edu. The Election Commissioner is under the directive of the SBP. As always if you want my opinion on this or anything else let me know at coltclem@tamu.edu.

Performance Review Of Election Commissioner Bathman

Yesterday a five member committee reviewed the performance of Election Commissioner Bathman. The reason for this was that complaints were filed against him for four different reasons. I will post about the reasons for the complaints later, at least the best I can tell. I only submitted one of the complaints and I will identify which one it is when I talk about them.

The conclusions were very good. Basically the Committee recognized Bathman's poor performance and reprimanded him for it. However the review Committee is allowing Bathman to stay on as the Election Commissioner. While I agree that he should stay on as Election Commissioner I do not agree with the reasoning. The reasoning behind staying on is basically that they could not find a suitable replacement. This is not exactly what they said in the Committee's final report however after conversations with people close to the situation they too believe that the only reason they did not find a replacement is because they simply could not find a capable candidate (although the candidates that they mentioned all seemed very capable of doing a great job).

More to follow on the specific complaints and how the committee has addressed them.

Opinions expressed in any aggiesenate blog posts are the opinions of the author.

Legislation for tonight...

Charge Illegal Aliens Out of State Tuition- Simple and to the point, this bill would charge illegal aliens out of state tuition. Currently there are 65 illegal aliens attending A&M paying in state tuition.

Discrimination Bills- Really simple, they make a good and uniform singular discrimination policy.

Senate Absence Policy- Internal housekeeping, good bill.

Transportation Services Support Bill- Splits lot 72 into two pieces, allowing for half to be pay per hour spots and the other half free.

MSC UCC Catering Bill- Allow for outside catering to be used on campus. Pretty complicated bill. I will write more on it later.

Vacancy Bill- I think this was tabled so I will not talk about it here.

Fair Trade Coffee- Cool bill, won't talk about it here though.

Gilbert Leadership Conference Bill- Make the Gilbert Leadership Conference part of SGA Committees.

Thats all, I will talk more about another big issue coming up in a seperate post.

Jake Bathman Fails to Comply with Court Order

In what can only be assumed to be an act of defiance against the Judicial Court, the Student Senate, and the Student Government as a whole; the Election Commissioner has refused to comply with a court order by the Chief Justice. The court order, issued around noon of Friday was to force the Election Commissioner to release information immediately detailing evidence that would be used against him in a upcoming case. I can only assume that the Election Commissioner is actively trying to deceive the Student Body. This will be resolved, I can assure you that.

Clemens v. Election Commission 2008-1

I had a few questions today about what was going on with my case against Jake. I feel like I should address it here. I was talking to Jake last week about filing and Jake had mentioned that he allowed for candidates to file outside of the designated filing time. When I heard this I was very alarmed for a few different reasons. My major concern of this was the simple fact that if the Election Commissioner doesn't follow the rules set out than how can you expect the candidates to follow the rules (this is a separate issue from this case in particular). Another thing that upsets me is that Jake allowed for exceptions to the rules while other candidates in the past were given no such privilege.

I think that Jake's motivation was to try and get as many candidates filed as to make himself look a little better considering only 40 candidates filed for 60 seats (my Sophomore year we had 45 or so file for off campus alone). Jake is spending a ridiculous amount of money for the election but spent virtually no money for filing days. On top of this he raised filing fees for Senate and this did not help a bit.

To get back on topic...
Jake refused to give out the information that was needed to make a case against him. This is a pretty decent defense mechanism but it seemed obvious that he had no reason to withhold information and the court agreed. Jake was ordered on Friday to release the information that I had asked for. I have not seen the information as of yet but I told him I did not need it until the weekend was done.

This case is important for a few other reasons also. This sends a message to any member of the SGA that all information is the property of the Students. More later on the bigger picture of this ruling.

Documents:
Clemens V Election Commission 2008-1 Court Decision
Clemens V Election Commission 2008-1 Case
Clemens V Election Commission 2008-1 Denied Motions to Dismiss

Success-ish

I won my case, kinda...

Basically the JCourt threw out Senator Testa's bill. This is good. But they also threw out my amendment to Senator Crocker's bill and they threw out Senator Bryan's bill. This is bad. I will not get too into this yet but it I respect the court's decision and will not air my grievances publicly. However if you call or email me I will tell you exactly what the decision means in the long run, and it is not good at all for Senate no matter what side you were on with this issue.

I have filed a new case against Jake Bathman for something completely unrelated to this. I will update latter for that

Last Wednesday's Meeting Notes...

Crazy meeting. Senate got a lot done and got a few new pieces of legislation read last Wednesday. The Anti-Discrimination bill went very well and we got a lot of good feedback to work on for the next meeting. Not sure if we will be voting on it or working on it a bit more here in a couple of weeks.

Senate passed a great amendment to Chloe Crocker's bill regarding election regulations. Senate then passed another bill that reaffirmed and expanded the amendment that I presented to the election regulations. These two pieces of legislation lowered the filing fees to 15 dollars for Minor Races and 30 dollars for Major Races. Then there was a lot of confusion later on when a new bill came up with very vague wording. In my best interpretation it simply reaffirmed the two pieces of legislation that we had already passed earlier in the night. I realized this and voted no on it simply because we had already talked about this and already made policy for it. Apparently the bill authors felt otherwise. This was very confusing and I have filed a JCourt case to get it all sorted out. I also have filed a case questioning the legality of the legislation seeing as it was not passed with proper parliamentary procedures. Whatever the case, the Court needs to figure out what is going on with the bill and I will respect whatever decision Chief Justice Reed and the rest of the court decides.

As many of you know, I love JCourt and cannot wait to get back in it. I hope everything goes well and the right decision is made. This will be a very important case that will have implications for a very long time.

Legislation for tomorrow...

Fall Break Bill- Make a fall break, good idea.

Alternative Revenue Committee- Finally a vote, interesting idea, my feel is that it will not work

Officer Reform Bill- Require officers to remain as a senator of the constituency after election. I will most likely table this for two more weeks so I can talk with Cody a bit more.

UIN Bill and By-Law Correction Bill- Constitution housekeeping, good bill

Vacancy Reform Bill- Cool idea, allow for caucus leaders as well as officers to decide the vacancies. I would like to see a few minor changes but nothing too big.

Alcohol and Aggiebucks- Winning combination. You should be able to buy alcohol with Aggiebucks.

Discrimination Bills- Much better this time around. More inclusive and not as exclusive.

Equity in Debate Bill- Stop the interruptions my bill authors during debate, great bill.

Fair Trade Coffee Bill- Bill to support the use of Coffee from small poor countries.

Financial Committee Bill- Make a standing committee that will review all fees before they come to the floor of the Senate. Great bill and I hope this passes.

iTunes Bill- Make a short synopsis of Senate meetings after every meeting. Good idea, however why the hell do they not capitalize the "i" in iTunes. This bugs the hell out of me and upsets my firefox spell checker. I guess the unique spelling is for hipster apple kids (like Election Commissioner Jake Bathman) to feel cool when buying their products.

Vacancies

Senate is currently accepting applications for vacant Senate seats in the following caucuses. Interested students are highly encouraged to apply using the application available below.

College of Science, College of Geosciences

College of General Studies, College of Vet Med

College of Business, College of Engineering

College of Education, College of Architecture

Off-Campus Residency Area, and Freshman

Click HERE for vacancy applications!

Rules and Regs meeting notes

All legislation passed through committee and will be eligible to be voted on next meeting.

The Alternative Revenue Committee got pretty good reviews, although a few wanted it to be in the by-laws. The Fee Task Force Bill got pretty much the same response. Hunter is planning on changing a few small things to make it a bit clearer and a bit more manageable. Both of these bills are exactly what the Senate and SGA should be working hard on to better serve the students as far as fees go.

Officer Reform and Equity in Debate both passed through with a few questions. Equity in debate got very positive feedback and is looking like it should have a great impact on the Senate as a whole. Officer Reform had a lot of hard questions that will most likely take more than two weeks to iron out. I will most likely be tabling this bill once my question and answer session is up next meeting. It simply needs more work.

Sorry about this being a non-comprehensive analysis of the meeting but I have a Fee Task force to get to here in a few minutes. Also I am tired from all the standing votes.

Just a spoonful of sugar...

This legislation and the surrounding fight was a perfect example of how important it is for senators to not simply kowtow every time the words "discrimination" or "diversity" are uttered. This bill, at its very core, was dedicated to putting A&M on the map for being on the cutting edge of accepting alternate lifestyles. Under the guise of eliminating discrimination on all fronts, this bill tried to get the Student Body of Texas A&M to legitimize terms which have received no legal precedent in the courts, and even asked us to go against the laws of the State of Texas by recognizing the validity of same-sex marriages.

Our discrimination policy should be proactive, but should also function within the structure of current state and federal laws. By trying to use the Student Senate of Texas A&M as a springboard to make headlines, the forces behind this bill risked sacrificing the unity and goodwill of our Aggie Family by making A&M a battleground. We would not be on the cutting edge- we would be on the front line.

The issue of accepting alternate lifestyles is a matter much larger than Student Senate or A&M. It is an issue which we must decide on as a nation. When such a time comes, I look forward to standing up for the rights of all Americans to enjoy the blessings of freedom. I refuse, however, to use the voice of the Student Body to trumpet opinions which they doubtfully hold themselves.

Last night showed that we are farther along on this struggle than we think. Votes were not divided along racial or ethnic lines; those in opponency were not bigots, those in favor were not martyrs. People spoke up from deeply divided hearts, and the result was in my opinion a fair representation of the Student Body.

This was, however, a resounding victory for reason. Instead of our old habits of swallowing the most bitter medicine with a spoonful of "diversity" vocabulary, we gave this legislation the consideration it deserved, and when our minds were made up, each of us voted in accordance with his or her own conscience.

The backlash to come will be bitter, as we've seen from SBP Prochaska's letter to the Senate. It must not, however, deter us from continuing to serve our constituents in the manner for which we were elected.

Anti-Discrimination Bill Continued

Anti Discrimination Bills- Failed- These bills simply would not have accomplished the goals they set out to accomplish. While the concept of this issue is very important and should still be addressed these bills were not the way in which to do so. These bills went through an amazing four month process in which they were scrutinized and analyzed to assess if they were beneficial to the student body. As outlined in the constitution the democratically elected and appropriately appointed Senate then took a vote on whether these bills were comprehensive enough to become official Texas A&M University Student Government Association policy. That vote, as you all know, came up as a pretty strong no vote.

However this did not seem to be enough for SBP Prochaska. Prochaska, instead of saying this to the Senate’s face, sent out an email that insinuated that those Aggies who voted against these bills were bad Aggies and intolerant. The Aggies who voted against these bills did as they were elected to do and that is to analyze the legislation and determine whether they felt their constituents’ best interests were best served by the legislation. This is very true with the Aggies who voted for the legislation as well. However they did not get a snide email from the Student Body President calling them bad Aggies.

Legislation from last night...

Student Input Amendment- Passed- Overwhelmingly passed after an amazing amendment from Cody Vasut.

Alcohol and AggieBucks- Read- Seemed like favorable opinions.

iTunes Bill- Read- Seemed like very favorable opinions.

Officer Reform Bill- Read- Had mostly favorable opinions however this is not ready yet. We need to talk about it in committee and iron out a lot of kinks.

Anti Discrimination Bills- Failed- More on this later.

Help A Firefighter: Eat Chili & Donate Blood

Howdy!

I will be asking the Senate to consider a piece of legislation to be added to the agenda that will be a resolution thanking a Bryan firefighter for his years of dedication. Firefighter Steve Scrivener is a veteran of 28 years to the Bryan Fire Department. He has recently been diagnosed with Non-Hodgins Lymphoma and is having troubles with his medical bills. Besides thanking him for his service, I encourage everyone to take their own steps and help him out at a fundraiser that will happen this Friday at the Bryan Fire Department.

Eat Heartily! From 11:30a-1:30p, the famous chili of Firefighters David Turek and Wesley Gideon will be available to the public for just $5/bowl. To go orders will be available at Bryan’s Central Fire Station on 300 W. William Joel Bryan Avenue. Email your order ahead of time at agonzale@bryantx.gov or just stop by Friday and pick some up to go!

It should be one of the goals of our Senate to better the community relationships in order to maintain a harmony with the local governments. Doing activities and showing up to their events will show them that students are a part of the community too and will help the twin cities be even better.

Gig Em
Landon P. Proctor
Off Campus

Legislation for tomorrow...

In addition to Dr. Murano joining us tomorrow and being welcomed by SGA as President of the University we have a few pieces of legislation. I authored most of the legislation so you probably know how I feel on the subject matter.

Student Input Amendment (4th Reading)- Require one half of one percent of the student body to have some sort of input on any and all fee legislation. This should add a bit more of a conservative approach to getting fees passed through Senate.

Alcohol and AggieBucks (1st Reading)- Pretty simple really, I believe that if you are of the legal drinking age you should be allowed to use AggieBucks to purchase alcohol. The school needs not try to govern the morals of the student body. We are plenty smart enough to make our own decisions about drinking alcohol.

iTunes Bill (1st Reading)- This would have the Senate publish an iTunes podcast after each Senate meeting. While I like the idea I think that the authors should just do it instead of authoring legislation about it. This is what happened with this blog.

Officer Reform Bill (1st Reading)- This bill would do two main things.
1. Make it required that you are currently serving in Senate to be eligible for an officer position.
2. Make the Senate officers responsible to their constituency while serving as an officer. Currently the officers have the ability to author and vote on legislation although they are only responsible to the Senate and not any constituency. The people who run for officer positions are more than capable of doing both jobs. I am currently amending this bill to provide an exclusion for the position of Speaker.

Discrimination Bills (Eleventy Billionth Reading)- These bills have been read so many times I am really getting tired of them. It is obvious that not many in Senate are comfortable with the bills yet are scared to vote no on an anti-discrimination bill. This is a horrible mindset but very understandable. I swear if we table this thing again my head may explode.

Tomorrow should be short and sweet.