Oregon Daily Emerald: What’s your year and major?
Jenkins: I’m a second year law student, major being law, but I’m focusing on environmental and natural resource law.
Emerald: Are you involved in any groups or activities here on campus?
Jenkins: Yes, I’m an officer in Phi Alpha Delta. I’m also a member of the pro bono committee. And I am the ABA law student division rep for our school. And ABA is a member of SBA.
Emerald: Why are you interesting in student government?
Jenkins: For one thing, we’re the only school in the twelve circuit of law schools that has to deal with undergrads for money for law organizations, and we don’t have adequate representation, and that’s the main reason I’m running. I want to get interesting mainly in this. I’m interested in seat 2 because there is only 1 year left on it, and I only have one year so I didn’t want to run for a 2-year slot. But just mainly to help law students get the money they need to run their organizations and put on programs, and it’s not only programs for the law school but programs that the whole school can attend, and there has been a lot of undergrads attending the recent programs that I’ve seen and helped with.
Emerald: How will you figure out how to spend the surplus?
Jenkins: Well, for one thing is, do you have to spend the surplus? That’s one thing. You could say — or maybe even use it for something larger — I don’t know, a concert or improvements to the school, just any manner of thing like that. One thing that you’ll want to do is definitely talk to organizations to hear what they have going on. If you save the surplus, save for it for a reason, save it for something, but don’t save it if there’s organizations that can use it to put on a function or whatnot for the school.
Emerald: What about when a group comes before the senate asking for money from the surplus, what are some of the standards that you’ll use to judge whether they deserve that money?
Jenkins: One would be how many people is it getting to? Is it a function or a conference just for members of the organization or is it for the whole school? That’s definitely one thing, because this is everybody’s incidental fees, so it should be used for the widest audience possible. I guess it also comes down to how many other organizations are asking for money and how much you have. If everyone is asking for a certain amount to where you’re not going to deplete your whole surplus, then you can give it the organizations because you have it there for them.
Emerald: Would political motivations play a factor in that?
Jenkins: I guess they could, and the reason that I say this is because the senate is made up of 18 people, the PFC specifically 7, and if there’s some organizations or some things that you believe in that should get more money, you may have to work with others, and that means that you would have to vote on something that you particularly wouldn’t agree but you would want to vote with to help out others that are helping you. I know you’re supposed to be as neutral and as fair as you can and impartial, but in reality that’s not the way that things go I don’t believe.
Emerald: How would you interact with student groups?
Jenkins: Well, I mean the ones that I’m a member of that I interact with day in and day out. Other student groups, just talking to them. I’m not sure exactly the rules, I’ve read the Constitution but it doesn’t mention anything about how you interact with organizations especially during the budget process. I don’t know if it’s such a good thing to be hanging out with too many organizations when you’re discussing their budgets. You just need to talk to people, it’s communication, and that’s the best way. Maybe even go to some of the functions that they throw, especially if you give money, say in the fall, to an organization, they put on this function, you should go to it and see if it was worthwhile or whatnot. And then you can make a decision based on functions that they throw in the spring, or you can leave notes for the next PFC saying, hey, I attended this function, it was a worthwhile function and they should keep doing it.
Emerald: Did you say you don’t think it’s a good idea to hang around groups you’re working on a budget with?
Jenkins: Well, it is a good idea because that’s the only way you can learn things. The only thing is that you need to be careful because you don’t want to become so buddy-buddy to where people will perceive a conflict of interest, and to where you will be disqualified constantly from the budgetary process, because if you’re being disqualified then you’re vote doesn’t really matter. So it’s a fine line, but you definitely need communication, you need to hang out with student organizations, but you also have to be careful.
Emerald: What would you say are the most important issues facing students you represent?
Jenkins: The most important issue, and this kind of gets to the whole money end of it, is that law school is different from the rest of the school. I know a lot of people say ‘you’re part of the school,’ this and that. We are part of the school, but we’re nontraditional students, everyone there, in the fact that we’re older and we also have our undergraduate degree, and a lot of the rules and regulations that are very adequate and very good for undergraduate organizations don’t apply so well to law school organizations. One case in point is the new rules that were just implemented in the last year about a cashier needed at all fund raising events. I understand that and I believe the reason for that rule is to ensure that money is calculated, money is accounted for, and that there are no discrepancies like that. Well we have a higher and stricter standard of professional responsibility; it’s ingrained in us, and we have to follow these rules when we graduate, too. And a lot of organizations relied on money from just bake sales, and when you have to hire a cashier, you’re not going to make a lot of money on a bake sale. Most organizations will make $30 or $40 if they’re lucky on a bake sale one day. Just certain things like that, and that’s why I believe law students need representation just so they get their voices heard and that, even possibly, that rules and everything are divided and split up based on if you’re a law school organization or an undergraduate organization. And I’m not going to say the same is true for grad schools because I don’t know, but it would seem similar because grad schools also have nontraditional students.
Emerald: So you hope to represent mostly law students?
Jenkins: Well, that’s the main thing. But then I also serve the greater college community, so I would have to represent undergrads also, and they would get just as fair representation.
Emerald: Do you know of any issues that might be facing undergrads, are do you feel kind of disconnected from them as a law student?
Jenkins: Yeah, and that’s one of those other reasons I’m running for this position is because we are disenfranchised from the establishment pretty much. I mean, we have our own coffee shop, we have everything that we need, we have our own administration, so there’s really no reason for us to even walk across Agate Street. Some of the bigger issues also with law students are the rec center and the health center, because we are on a different time schedule, and they are not open for us. But that also affects undergraduates, because there are a lot of undergrads that still live in this area that could use the rec center, that may need the health center. And it’s mainly just for the month of August and the beginning of September because you guys don’t start until the third week of September but we’ve already been here for five weeks.
Emerald: What is the most important thing you should know in order to deal with the budget process?
Jenkins: Well you need to know how much money you have and what your limits are. And that way you can focus on that and be able to see ahead and be able to plan th
e best. If you’re not sure of what your budget is, if you’re not sure how much you have — because I was in the student government when I was an undergrad and everything and our budget was just so haphazardly done because the administration wouldn’t tell us exactly how much it was, and so it’s definitely a problem when you can’t put down a solid plan.
Emerald: Once you have a solid plan, what would you say the most important thing is to deal with the budget process?
Jenkins: I’m trying to understand your question here — could you maybe elaborate in a different way?
Emerald: For instance, what’s the most important thing you should know in order to deal with the budget process in regards to student groups?
Jenkins: So, just the PFC or the whole–
Emerald: Yeah
Jenkins: Well the most important thing is to listen to the student groups, listen to what they’re asking for, and find out their details. Also check and see what they’re doing outside of just PFC money, like do they fund raise on their own or do they rely solely on PFC funds? I mean, there are many different factors but it’s mainly just communication with organizations to find out their information, what they do — get details on that.
Emerald: I’ve got a rules question for you. Do you know how many standing committees the senate is obligated to have?
Jenkins: How many standing committees the senate is obligated to have? No, I don’t know that.
Emerald: OK last question, what’s the most important part of section 5 of the student senate rules, and why?
Jenkins: Well section 5 is the executive, and so — they are the executive rules.
Emerald: It’s the senate duties.
Jenkins: Senate duties are section 6, because I checked those out. If you look in the constitution, senate duties are section 6, and executive duties are section 5. With executive duties, one thing I found that I was just looking through, and I read this in the senate duties is that the president has veto. So if you’re talking about section 5, then the presidential veto is the most important when you’re a senator, just because you have to deal with the fact that whatever you pass could possibly be vetoed and that you’d have to get an override vote. Section 6, I always think that the most important thing for the student senate is — and they don’t say attendance is required but there is a quorum section and I can’t remember exactly what section it is — but showing up is the best thing you can do. Because you’re votes not going to count, you’re can’t get anything done if you don’t have a quorum or you don’t have people there. And that is the foundation that’s the baseline that you need to be able to make the senate effective.