Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Presentation to the Senate
A commenter named ambiguous cleared things up about what "technicality" Andrew Rittenburg was complaining about. Apparently, the proponents of the recall sent an e-mail to the Senate with the petition and (I assume) names before the Senate meeting. They argue that it was a "presentation to the Senate," which meant that the "next Senate meeting" was later that day. I suppose you could make that argument, but it doesn't strike me as particularly convincing. The Senate is public, so allowing people to "present" to the Senate in a nonpublic way seems to miss the point. Telling something to all Senators isn't telling the Senate as a whole anything. Arguing that getting the petition to the Senate a few hours before the Senate meeting makes that meeting the "next one" seems far more technical to me.
By the way, there's nothing stopping the Senate from scheduling the election for some time in December. The timing requirement is that it's scheduled for before January 28. If the date had been set last week, it would've had to be scheduled for before January 21. In both cases, the election would have to be "during the Spring or Fall semester." The Fall semester ends Dec. 20, and the Spring semester begins Jan. 13. If so inclined, the Senate could push the election back indefinitely by canceling regular Senate meeting, because the rule counts not in weeks but in regular Senate meetings.
It seems the largest obstacle is logistics, not when the election gets set. I doubt the ASUC would have been able to assemble an election by Dec. 20 even if it had been set last week. I have my doubts they'll be able to put it together by Jan. 28, for that matter, and I don't see how they would have been able to do it on Jan. 20, the first day of instruction.
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