Tuesday, March 06, 2007
More fee increases
Yay! The ASUC is offering more fee increases. Altogether, they come out to $26 per semester. Remember that when folks talk about how each one is only one or two burritos. Those burritos add up fast.
A Bill In Support of a Democratic Referendum for a Student Life Fee: This is a $12 fee increase, to pay costs for specific student groups and remove them from the processes that other groups have to go through to get money. This will likely start a trend, where student groups with friends in high places will be able to get their funding specially secured through referenda. The beneficiaries are SUPERB, Cal Band, UC Jazz Ensembles, UC Choral Ensembles and unnamed "graduate student groups." It apparently wasn't enough for the GA to get all fees that graduate students pay. They want more.
A Bill In Support of a Democratic Referendum for a Student Union Complex Fee: We're not done! We need another, $9, fee increase, which will increase by $1.80 each year for 4 years. Even summer students will have to pay a fee. This is the Lower Sproul "conceptual plan" fee increase, which will preface the enormous one (counted in hundreds of dollars) later. Now would be a perfect time to head this travesty off.
A Bill in Support of César Chávez Holiday: I'll just read you the punchline:
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, every school district, community college, and university throughout California abide by the spirit and letter of the law and close on March 30th 2007, the César Chávez Holiday, and it be recognized as a holiday for students and workers throughout California every year. The ASUC is more powerful than I thought. I would've thought most of those closures would be beyond its power. And yes, this is a Dimitri Garcia bill. How did you guess?
A RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF EQUAL PROTECTIONS: It's a Jeff Manassero bill! Well, okay, I wrote it, but he titled it. This will extend equal protection to referenda.
A RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF MORE HUMBLE BY LAWS: Aww, they're taking away the name on the campaign finance bylaws, too.
A Bill In Support Of ASUC Website Temporary Committee: This will establish a committee to deal with the new ASUC website. Or something.
A Bill to Support of Assembly Bill 1548: This bill is sponsored by "Senator Van Nguyen, Sannah Rahim and Alberto Gonzalez." I don't know who those last two are, or why they can sponsor bills. AB 1548 has something to do with textbook publishers disclosing information about the methods they use to make money by editioning and incentivizing. It may be important, but the ASUC endorsement probably won't be.
A Bill to Support of ASSEMBLY BILL 262: The assembly bill seeks to limit credit card dudes on campus. No more free shirts!
A Bill in Support of Dr. Darren Zook: Self-explanatory, I hope.
A BILL IN SUPPORT OF BALLOT CLARITY: This is a Jeff/Alex Kozak bill, which seeks to put restrictions on what goes in the "nickname" part of the ballot:
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that Title IV, Section 7.2.2 of the ASUC By-Laws be modified to read:
2. A candidate may have an additional name of no longer than 17 characters in length printed in quotations along with their registered name on the ballot, with the following restrictions to be enforced by the Elections Council Chair:
a. may not imply or contain the name of any other candidate or registered ASUC party in the present election.
b. may not imply or contain instruction on who or what to vote for in the present election
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that candidates shall be discouraged from selecting intentionally misleading nicknames during the ASUC Candidate's Meeting, and throughout the registration process in all future elections. If this passes, it'll pass 9 days into, and 2 days before the end of, the filing period. That would be a pretty cramped schedule to correct any names. It's also a pretty serious free speech restriction, as it suddenly becomes the job of the Elections Council to say what is or is not allowed, as nearly anything could be construed as implying who to vote for. If the concern is to prevent nicknames from being used for campaigning, then they just have to do away with them completely.
. . .
|
. . .
|
