The Student Assembly seemed rested after last week’s hiatus, unanimously and vigorously passing the Know What You Are Voting for Act and the Preventing the Finance Code from Expiring Act.
The Know What You Are Voting for Act, allocates $109 to print informative flyers to be placed in all undergrad CSUs detailing the changes proposed in the 2009 honor council referendum. You will all (hopefully) receive these flyers sometime soon so I won’t detail the changes, but I will say that if you find yourself feeling compelled to vote in this referendum please vote no. Amid some vaguely positive sounding reforms there are few strikingly authoritarian measures such as, not allotting time during the sanctioning hearing for the accused to “argue without equivocation,” and allowing the chair to deny a request for an open hearing if he has “good cause”.
What is “good” cause? I have no idea and don’t feel at all comfortable with letting the honor council chair define it at his leisure.
With that said, this is a great bill that at least informs students that the honor council is trying to cut them out of their own hearings.
The Preventing the Finance Code from Expiring Act renews the finance code and makes a small change. Previously, the SA President needed the senate chairman’s approval to make a purchase of over $200, but with the recent change the SA President only has to send out an e-mail through the senate finance committee 12 hours prior to the purchase. Please feel free to make your own funny joke about the finance code.
It’s a good reflection on the current state of affairs that this meeting seemed exceedingly productive.
