Bylaw changes!

I'll be following ASUC bylaw changes fairly closely this year. This week, Title I is being amended, apparently.

Many of the changes are corrections in grammar or some such. There are meaningful changes, however, including an unconstitutional one. (Though the law was probably already unconstitutional)

One of the changes is to change the concept of "killing bills" to "failing bills." Killing is scary, I guess.

The other interesting change involves Title I, Article XV. As far as I can tell, it currently reads as follows:

15.1 Membership in the ASUC is voluntary. No person shall be forced to become a member of the ASUC if he/she does not wish to be. All students, regardless of membership, shall have equal access to all services that the ASUC offers.

15.2 To become a member in the ASUC a student must do one of the following:

1. Vote in the ASUC election,

2. Hold any elected position in the ASUC,

3. Be a member of the Judicial Council,

4. Be a member of the ASUC Store Operations Board, or

5. Sign the back of his/her UC Berkeley Registration Card.

15.3 Membership in the ASUC shall be for one (1) semester, and must be renewed every semester.

15.4 The ASUC shall inform the student body that membership in the ASUC is voluntary and instruct the student body how to become a member every semester in the Election Supplement or in other advertisements.

As it currently stands, in order to remain members, we have to keep signing the back of our registration cards (whatever those are) every semester, or every other semester if we vote. That's already pretty ridiculous, and the bill considered this week is to strike that section entirely. The consequence is that unless you get elected or appointed to specific positions in the ASUC, you cannot become a member of the ASUC without voting, and even then it only lasts a semester.

Let me go grab a charge sheet...

posted by Beetle Aurora Drake 11/19/2006 03:06:00 PM #
Comments (5)

. . .

Comments:

Once upon a time, the University sent out "confirmed class schedules" each term that had a card-sized portion with a dashed-line around it for you to cut out. It was the ASUC registration card, had a spot on the back for you to sign and a statement thathow ASUC membership is voluntary. If I remember right they stopped sending them out around halfway through my undergrad career, which was 1999-2003. I never, ever heard of anyone actually cutting one out and carrying it around with them.

# posted by  Anonymous : 3:44 PM, November 19, 2006

 

Must all non-members pay for the ASUC?

# posted by  Anonymous : 3:53 PM, November 19, 2006

 

Yes. But that's not ASUC policy, that's university policy.

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 3:54 PM, November 19, 2006

 

By the way, have you actually tried drafting language of your own and sending it to them it? This seems like the sort of technical thing that they might be willing to take a suggestion on.

If I were writing it I would just say that membership is voluntary, all students (and students continuing from spring to fall, for the summer term) are members by default, and that they can opt out by telling the ASUC so.

# posted by  Anonymous : 5:24 PM, November 19, 2006

 

ASUC folks read this blog. If they actually want my help, they can always ask. Otherwise, they can continue to look like idiots, and I'll continue to point it out.

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 5:53 PM, November 19, 2006

 

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