Senators settle in to new roles

Heads bent over bylaws, faces contorted in frustration, senior Patience Boudreaux and freshman Rebecca Shrago guided Student Council (StuCo) members through a written interpretation of committee responsibilities Tuesday night in an effort to pass bylaws for the new constitution. It was just the beginning of their new roles as senators on the Legislation Committee.

"We are responsible for interpreting the new constitution and writing bylaws," said Shrago. "A few Sundays ago, when we first cracked down on it, we worked for eight-and-a-half hours."

Boudreaux and Shrago are two of the 16 senators who were voted into the newly-formed Student Assembly in early December after the new Constitution's approval.The senators "are going to be able to propose, vote on and pretty much do everything that deals with legislation," said Jered Ede, freshman senator and author of the Constitution.

Under the new Constitution, the Student Assembly will meet separately from the Executive Council. Each senator has been assigned to one of four committees: the Committee on Leadership Appointment, the Finance Committee, the Authorization Committee and the Committee on Legislation.

"The different committees split up what the whole Student Council used to do at regular meetings," said Vidya Mahadevan, a new senator who served as junior class representative under the old system. "It's a lot more red tape, and it seems that it's going to make things a lot harder."

Each committee is made up of four senators, one from each class. Only senators can initiate proposals in order to concentrate legislative power in the Student Assembly rather than in the Executive Council.

"The Student Assembly does have quite a bit more responsibility and initiating power than the Executive Council does," said Ede, "but in the same respect, the Executive Council has lot of power in terms of being able to administer all these actions that are being taken by the Student Assembly and actually putting them into action."

While each committee will have a chairperson, the leading senator will only play a leadership role and will not wield any greater power over other senators. Decisions made at the committee level will then go up for vote by the Student Assembly.

"Before [the new Constitution], the entire Student Council would make decisions," said Mahadevan. "Now, the different committees split up what the whole Student Council used to do at regular meetings."

Senators' specific responsibilities will depend on their assigned committee.The Committee on Authorization will review club applications for constitution approval. The Finance Committee will oversee the Student Activities Commission and handle most StuCo funds and spending. The Committee on Leadership Appointments will select student directors for campus groups, such as the Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium. The Committee on Legislation is responsible for making sure that the actions of student council members are in accordance with the bylaws," said Shrago.

But without a new set of bylaws, senators don't know what specific roles they'll play in the new StuCo.

"We don't specifically know what our jobs are until the bylaws are passed," said freshman Senator Atin Agarwal.

This is the first responsibility of senators on the legislative committee -- to draft up the bylaws.

"Keeping [the new Constitution] in mind, we went through the old bylaws sentence by sentence, and if it wasn't applicable, then we struck it, and if it was, we kept it in," said Shrago.

But most StuCo members agree that the new Constitution focuses power at the committee-level."It's going to allow us to get more done," he said. "[In the previous StuCo with] 33 people debating in one room, you had so many opinions coming in that it takes three times as long as it actually should."

The committees will focus each senator's expertise on one issue, said Ede. "You've got four people whose only job is to work with those specific laws that have to deal with legislation," he said. The entire Student Assembly will meet once a week, but the full StuCo -- Student Assembly and Executive Council -- will never come together to discuss decisions."It's so split that it's going to be very hard to get anything done," Mahadevan said.