Haha

Van Nguyen vetoed that "Hey, we still like Israel" bill because it didn't adequately describe the nuance or some such. Which is funny, considering the other ridiculously one-sided bills that make absurd, unsupported claims that have passed, such as the DREAM Act or Jena 6 bills, which somehow didn't earn the veto.

A more interesting topic now is the use of the ASUC letterhead in press releases and ads. There is already a great deal of tension in how the president has been using the ASUC's ad space to push his own political goals, without concern for whether or not they are in line with the Senate's views. The Office of the President released a press release that called the bill conceived through a "flawed process."

The ASUC website, on the other hand, already has a press release up titled "Student Government Affirms US-Israel Relationship," which turns out to be false. This is an issue I've noted before to the ASUC folks, which is that Senate bills take effect instantly, but vetoes can come up to a week later, which means bills take effect, and then untake effect when vetoed. What happens if the consequences of actions taken before the veto can't be undone? Has the president lost veto power?

Daily Cal story here.

posted by Beetle Aurora Drake 11/08/2007 06:38:00 AM #
Comments (7)

. . .

Comments:

to my knowledge, if a bill passes in the senate, doesn't it have to wait a week until the minutes are approved? I think people (senators) forget the power of the veto (which rarely happens) and therefore assume that a bill can take into effect. But I have seen bills dealing with money that have to wait until the minutes are approved in order for them to get their money. With that said, didnt the asuc (gabe) jump the gun with all the press releases and stuff?

# posted by  Anonymous : 7:52 AM, November 08, 2007

 

The Senate claims, in its By-Laws, that bills take effect immediately upon passage. I'm not aware of any functional requirement to wait on the minutes, though that would probably make sense.

Financial allocations require a 2/3 vote anyway, so I'm not even sure if the president has veto power. I believe they've spent money immediately before approval.

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 9:55 AM, November 08, 2007

 

The passage of bills is official at the next senate meeting upon approval of the minutes. A bill's passage is never official until the minutes are approved.

# posted by  Manuel Buenrostro : 6:51 PM, November 08, 2007

 

I don't know what you're basing that on. The By-Laws claim "Bills shall take affect immediately upon approval of the Senate unless otherwise specified in the Bill." In fact, on the RSF referendum, you argued that if what the minutes the Senate approves said disagreed with what the Senate thought it did, the minutes don't count, and the Judicial Council agreed.

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 7:20 PM, November 08, 2007

 

Let me clarify a bit why that matters: They agreed on the grounds that Senate bills take effect immediately, and thus can't be conditioned on approval of the minutes.

I'm glad to see you've finally come around to understand the problems with that approach, if years late.

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 7:24 PM, November 08, 2007

 

Your ASUC sucks. ASUCD (Davis) works in some sort of reasonable way -- bills and resolutions take effect only after the president signs them, or two weeks later ("pocket pass"). There has to be an actual vote to override the veto, and I've seen quite a few bills that have passed by large margins fail at the veto override stage.

And even after this, the financial Controller can enjoin student funds from being disbursed if he feels something fishy is going on.

Anyway, it would be nice if your Constitutional Review committee decided to fix that part of the constitution.

# posted by  Brent Laabs : 11:00 PM, November 08, 2007

 

Well, I don't know when the bills are supposed to take effect--but I know that all funding bills do not take effect until the minutes are approved (you cannot pick up the money until after that point).

# posted by  Yaman : 9:27 AM, November 12, 2007

 

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