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.