The ASUO Constitution Court, the judicial arm of student government, has rejected rule changes submitted by the Student Senate “due to typographical errors, ambiguities, unintelligible language and inconsistencies with Oregon Administrative Rules (OAR) and the ASUO Constitution.”
The changes would have affected wording within the Green Tape Notebook, student government’s rule book, regarding gifts, donations and fund-raising accounts.
The document submitted to the court contained misspellings and referred to rules the court found do not exist.
“We do not assume the role of spell-checker or copy editor, and it would not be appropriate for this neutral judicial body to interject itself as the referee of what the Student Senate must have really meant when it was too busy to proofread,” according to the four-man court’s per curiam decision.
Senate President Sarah Hamilton said she was a little surprised by the ruling but that the Senate will work with the court to correct the rules.
“I really do understand where they’re coming from, because anytime you put rules in the Green Tape Notebook, it’s permanent and it’s pretty serious,” she said.
The rules were primarily written by ASUO accountant Lynn Giordano, Hamilton said.
“I don’t want to pass blame on anyone, but these rules weren’t written by Senate,” she said.
Prompted by realizations that the old ASUO rules in question violated Oregon University System policies, the Senate changed the rules to forbid groups from spending student fees on gifts, scholarships and food for internal program meetings.
It was unclear how much student money was incorrectly spent using the old guidelines, although Giordano previously said violations occurred “across the board” among programs.
The court found that the rule changes contained ambiguities, citing three passages that were “so poorly written as to be unintelligible.”
Justices also ruled that two passages violated preexisting rules stipulated in the Oregon Administrative Rules – state laws student government must follow – and the Green Tape Notebook .
The court said a passage that allows raised funds to be deposited in trust fund accounts conflicts with an OAR that requires trust fund dollars to be deposited into an EMU account.
Another passage states that “for any program to receive incidental fees it must be recognized by the ASUO Executive and present mission and goals statements to Senate.”
The court ruled that this section would impede the power granted to the Programs Finance Committee, the body that disburses incidental fee money to groups, in the ASUO Constitution. Senate only has the power to allocate funds between the three major programs – the Programs Finance Committee, the Athletics Department Finance Committee and the EMU – according to the ruling.
Although the Senate must submit rule changes to the court no later than Nov. 1, the court determined that the original document was submitted by that deadline and that it will consider the revised rules if they are resubmitted in a timely fashion.
“The court would appreciate if in the future this rule was complied with,” the ruling states.
The court scolded senators for submitting the rule changes with errors.
“The court would like to note that these proposed rules, if they had been approved, would have remained in effect until a latter Student Senate had replaced or repealed them,” according to the ruling. “They would have substantially affected the operations of an organization that handles millions of dollars every year. Proposed rule changes are serious matters with potential long term consequences. It will remain the drafters’ responsibility to present reasonably clear rules, regulations and policies to the court for review.”
The Senate appreciates the feedback, Hamilton said.
“If Con Court had just stamped them, I would be kind of worried, really,” she said.
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