ASUC Update

Lawsuits, power, and a missing senator?

By Amaury Gallais and Andrew R Quinio
From the December 2004 Print Edition

Thomas Jefferson declared, “If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose the latter.” The ASUC claims to be the only autonomous student government in the nation, but they will not escape the watchful Patriot eye. We have granted our elected peers full faith and credit to do what is right, but democratic trust does not mean a free ride. While there are ASUC senators who love to hear the sound of their own voices, there will be Patriots who love to keep those same senators on their feet. As long as there is a Cal student government, the ASUC News section of the California Patriot will live on. The following is the ASUC news as reported by Berkeley’s conservative voice.

DAAP Lawsuit Tossed

A lawsuit that a Defend Affirmative Action Party senator filed against the ASUC was dropped on November 16 by a federal judge.

In the lawsuit, ASUC Senator Yvette Felarca asked that her senate seat be restored. The complaint stems from last year’s election, when the Judicial Council barred all DAAP candidates from the elections after the party had badgered the council at a meeting. Felarca also claimed that her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights had been violated when she was disqualified.

The lawsuit was tossed when U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney determined that the restoration of Felarca’s senate seat had already taken place, thus making the lawsuit irrelevant. The senate seat was restored by actions taken by the ASUC over the summer.

ASUC President Misha Leybovich issued an executive order that allowed the Judicial Council to temporarily suspend the rules and reverse the disqualification of DAAP candidates. The rules articulate that the Judicial Council has authority to issue penalties sanctioned by ASUC laws. The council gave Felarca two censures for her outrageous behavior.

Judicial Council Strengthened

The ASUC Senate granted the Judicial Council the power to set its own punishments for election violators.

The new powers, known as “equitable remedy,” allow the council to slap penalties not mandated by the ASUC constitution. The bill’s author, Student Action Senator Igor Tregub saw the bill as a necessary reform for a council that was previously hindered by traditional rules.

President Misha Leybovich had planned on vetoing the bill unless it was refined to give the Judicial Council moderate discretion. Concerns stemmed from the possibility that new powers would allow the council to make up new rules. With a refined bill, which would provide the council powers to sanction its own punishments to only specific violators, particularly those of the DAAP, Tregub says he is “fairly confident Leybovich will not veto the bill.”

Senator MIA

The ASUC constitution is very explicit. A senator can be removed if “she has failed to attend sufficient meetings such that s/he will not, by the end of the semester, be able to have attended 70 percent of the regular Senate meetings of a semester.” This is the least we should expect from our elected officials.

Yet a modest error from the ASUC’s executive vice president has lead to controversy over a senator’s attendance record that put into question the applicability of this rule.

Cal Serve Senator Annalyn Terre had already missed four senate meetings when she asked Executive Vice President Christine Lee for permission to miss a fifth one. After telling Terre that her absence would not put her senate seat in jeopardy, Lee canceled the senate meeting before Thanksgiving. As a result, Terre could no longer attend the total of nine meetings required by the constitution.

Considering this to be her mistake, Lee sued herself in the Judicial Council to try to keep Terre in the senate. While Lee’s intentions are respectable, such a debate should never have to take place in a situation like this.

The reality is that Senator Terre missed enough meetings for her dedication to be questioned. This is a sign that she has not lived up to the responsibilities she was entrusted with by the 30,000 Cal students.

As so very few senators are chosen to represent us, we can only expect on the part of our elected officials a complete commitment to serving the student body. Any less than that is unacceptable.

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