The summer senate issue remains unresolved for the second straight week.
The Senate Rules Committee, which met briefly during a recess Wednesday night, could not resolve a variety of concerns about how the senate functions during the summer, including the number of people on the smaller summer body, quorum and stipend payment.
The rules committee has to present a draft to the senate for a vote before summer senate can even exist. The ASUO Constitution Court ruled the summer senate unconstitutional earlier this year.
On the financial side, despite its momentary controversy, the senate approved to the Designated Driver Shuttle an $11,000 transfer from the payroll part of its budget to fix a van and recover debts in the gas and telephone bill parts of its budget.
In last year’s election, students approved a DDS budget increase. The lump sum was split into specific areas, including payroll.
But with the specific guidelines for spending voted by students, senators and court Chief Justice Robert Rashio, who was at the meeting representing the court for its own special request, weren’t sure if the allocation would break any ASUO rules.
After approving the first part of the transfer, $1,000 from payroll to gas, Sen. Peter Watts questioned whether to postpone a vote until next week’s meeting so the senate could be sure they were moving funds legally.
“It will impair us a lot more if we set a dangerous precedent …” he said. “This is something we really need to investigate.”
But the other senators felt certain enough that they were not breaking the rules to continue with a $547 transfer to phone bills and $9,453 to van repair.
“We’re not touching the spirit of the student vote. We’re just hammering out the details,” Sen. Jereme Grzybowski said. “We can do this tonight. It’s completely legal. If not, impeach me.”
Senate President Jessica Timpany agreed and the money passed with Watts dissenting on the other two transfers.
“We’re doing a greater disservice if we don’t transfer this money … and they can’t drive our drunk butts home,” Watts said.
The senate also approved a total of $968 to the court to help it start its new office in room 20 in the EMU and $1,047 for the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity, which 11 students from a variety of multicultural student groups will attend.