| OCR Text |
Show Editorials Go Back The student body today gets to take their crack at the new ASUU Constitution. While the new revisions solve many problems existing under the present trial form of government, such as providing a method for remov ng officers from their positions and creating a judiciary m the ioZ of Student Regulations Committee it leaves many weak soots unresolved and creates other difficulties. One point, which has been a Chronicle gripe for many years and is not alleviated by the new constitution is the matter of the appointment of the Union Board Chairman. T person site on Coordinating Council, or in the i case of the old constitution, Executive Council, and is in charge of Union Board, which sets policies and spends money for the student Union Building. This building is built and maintained with student funds, yet the students have no representative voice in how this money is spent. We fully realize that the Union Board Chairman must have a background back-ground in Union operations, but we did hope that the new constitution would make a provision for election of the chairman from a field approved by the group which now selects him. Our main complaint with the new document, however, is the fact that it continues and indeed compounds the present unwieldiness of the executive branch. While admittedly ad-mittedly the trial constitution ratified last spring abolished the 40-man student senate, it jumped membership in the executive body from seven to 15. This number will be increased in-creased to 17 with the establishment of a Public Affairs Board and the abolishment of the office of Vice President. The constitution also neglects to stipulate just what constitutes a quorem. With $383,000 at the disposal of Coordinating Council, the student body has a right to know just how representative the spending of this money and the matter of excess appropriations will be. The Organizations Board, under the present constitution, consti-tution, had the power to initiate some legislation under their own name. If the new document is ratified, they will be little more than the voice of Advisory Board on Coordinating Coor-dinating Council a job which would just as well be handled by one man the president of Advisory Board. Then too, the way things now stand, and unless the Board of Regents sees fit to change it, the constitution, if ratified today, will become the permanent governing document docu-ment for ASUU because Deans' Council felt it too outstanding out-standing a document to be adopted for only a trial period. We do not think it fair to saddle the student and future officers with a constitution which may well prove totally ineffective. It is true that the revisions proposed by the Constitutional Consti-tutional Revision Sub-Committee would make the constitution consti-tution a much more effective document than it has been the past year which is not saying much but it still leaves too many weak spots in student government. We would propose defeating the revisions in the referendum today, going back to the old form of government in effect two years ago, and giving Executive Council and the student stu-dent senate another year to come up with a better form of government. |
