Friday, March 24, 2006
Not this shit again
More demands for Graduate Assembly Quasi-Independence. GA members still apparently lack the balls to form an independent government for graduate students, but now want the ASUC to give them special consideration, and it looks like only Ben Narodick has any concern for what's best for the ASUC by opposing this.
The three parts are, apparently, (and according to the Daily Cal article, so take with appropriate salt):
1. The GA can formally disagree with the ASUC about stuff. The oddity of this, in the absence of actual autonomy for the GA, is notable, but I don't see how this is relevant, or even a meaningful change, so hey, fine by me.
2. At least 3 members of the Judicial Council are graduate students. This is the dumbest idea ever, and should be the focal point of our (doomed-to-failure) attempts to defeat this. I'll go over this in more detail, but we need to mention number 3 first.
3. GA pays 12%, or proportion of voters who are graduate students, when it comes to elections.
Looking at 3, the concern seems to be that, since graduate students aren't all that interested in the ASUC, they shouldn't have to foot the bill for most of it. Let's not ignore, however, that graduate students pay nothing (yes, nothing) for the functioning of the ASUC outside of the GA. All of our fees go towards the GA.
Now, consider point 2. Even though the GA only wants to be responsible for the proportion of elections that we vote for, they want to be responsible for a proportion of judicial decision-making that is far greater. Should undergrads push for a "6 or more members of the Judicial Council should be undergrads" demand? It seems reasonable, since we're apparently no longer interested in putting people on the Judicial Council in accordance with their talent and interest in the ASUC.
Now, if you're interested in the actual text, head over to page 28 or so on this thingie, which I think is accurate, though I wouldn't know. The description in the Daily Cal is, unsurprisingly, inaccurate, as far as point 2 is concerned. The change is that six spots will be nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate, as is the case now, and the other three are nominated by the GA. Notably, unless I'm misreading this, the senate can still refuse to confirm the nominees.
The Memorandum of Understanding holds the GA responsible for paying for some old elections. I don't know if these numbers are lower than they used to be.
It also demands that the Judicial Council change its rules "to better serve Graduate Students in cases dealing with the Graduate Assembly. These changes must be done in such a way as to grant an opportunity for equal representation of Graduate justices and Undergraduate justices in all cases dealing with the Graduate Assembly." I'm not entirely sure what that entails, though.
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