ASUO President Amelie Rousseau’s published comments, which suggested her intent to veto any Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee budget that does not include Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group funding, are starting to rile feathers in the Senate.
Sen. Brianna Woodside-Gomez, ACFC chair, motioned to adjourn OSPIRG’s Feb. 2 budget hearing before a vote was held to fund the group.
Woodside-Gomez said at the meeting she heard public testimony from every possible avenue the week before the hearing and her motion was based on a feeling of intimidation she was feeling from OSPIRG supporters.
A presidential veto is a part of the process of incidental fee allocation approval.
Every year, when the finance committees have their final hearings with contracts and programs, the committee’s allocations go to Senate for approval. Those budgets then go to the ASUO president, the University president and eventually the Oregon University System chancellor to be approved.
According to the Green Tape Notebook, the ASUO’s governing documents, a presidential veto can be overridden by Senate. The vote must take place within five days of receiving the written veto, and an override requires a two-third vote of filled seats.
In response to this, Rousseau contacted the Emerald and said she would veto an ACFC budget without OSPIRG.
Rousseau has since said she does not want to force a veto; simply she would like to see Senate hold ACFC to another hearing, because she said she feels the one that ACFC held was not fair.
Woodside-Gomez said this is not enough. She said she talked with members of the executive and felt that Rousseau’s comments suggested that another formal hearing will come to the same result.
“What’s the point? If Exec is just going to disregard (the ACFC’s ruling), that makes us completely useless,”
Woodside-Gomez said. “Say we have an appeal and every single person at the University gets a public testimony and we still decide it’s in the students’ best interests to have no OSPIRG; they’re still going to veto it, no questions asked.”
Sen. Ian Fielding, ACFC vice chair, said he was expecting this result from Rousseau and the executive staff.
“I mean, they like OSPIRG, so I’m not surprised that they’re going to veto it. I thought that from the start,” Fielding said. “It’s not a surprise to me at all.”
Fielding said he thought Rousseau had the right to do what she was suggesting even though he thought the hearing was fair.
Sen. Kaitlyn Lange said she was disappointed by the executive’s actions.
“It felt like it was a very immature response to have (regarding) the issue, because there was a fair amount of evidence her constituents didn’t support OSPIRG in the budget,” Lange said. “I thought she was using a very personal bias to reject the budget as a whole.”
Lange said Woodside-Gomez’s motion to adjourn was appropriate given the discussions ACFC members have had with students, but that it could have been handled better.
“From evidence I’ve heard, (OSPIRG) presented the same presentation in front of ACFC before; they’ve (had) multiple outside conversations before,” Lange said.
“The ending result was appropriate. I don’t think people should be against that.
It would have been preferable if they had rehashed verbally in front of the public the personal conversations they have had.”
 
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