Internal Affairs Commission Minutes
March 4, 2013
5:05 PM – Mee Room
Quorum Roll Call
Meeting called to order at 5:05 pm.
Members:
Present: Waaland, Cano, McManus, Lopez, Rivilis, Lara, Luna, Renslo, Yoon, Hackney, Herskovitz
Absent: Dias (Excused)
Late: Smythe
Others:
Present: Kappes(Senator), Thomas(Senator), Burke(Senator), Chau(MoP), Garg(MoP), Marquez(MoP), Truong(MoP)
Senate Bill #62(Burke)
Author’s comments: Pretty simple bill. Right now, candidates are assessed one violation point. If candidates don’t turn in any expenditure forms, they could be seated. I didn’t think that was fair, so I whipped up a bill to change the penalty from one violation point to two. So if you don’t submit both, you’re disqualified, and if you don’t submit one, you walk a fine line.
Questions and Text:
Burke: 2 should be placed before 2 in parentheses.
McManus: Line 4, capitalize background.
Yoon: Line 23: Strikethrough one, underline two.
Kappes: You got all my edits.
Smythe: Line 18 is a little confusing to me.
Burke: I copypasted from the bylaw.
Smythe: Post “election expenditure form” Just bold and period it.
Public discussion:
Rivilis: Does this take misreporting of funds, etc?
Burke: Yes, nothing else is changed.
Cano: If I turn it in a minute late, I get two violation points. If I lose a receipt, it’s two violation points.
Burke: I’m just increasing the penalty for not turning in the expenditure form.
McManus: I understand what Cano is saying, but I don’t know we institutionalize “this is fifteen minutes late.” I like this as of now.
Commission Discussion:
Smythe: Deferment to Joshua.
Herskovitz: If they falsify their expenditure forms, are you open to the Elections Committee figuring this out?
Burke: I think they have a lot of that discretion. I would be amenable that 0-1-2-3 violation points are at the discretion of the chair based on time.
Herskovitz: I could see someone being really against a candidate and deciding to raise a violation point on being a minute late. That was my opinion the first read.
Smythe: What were you saying, Joshua?
Burke: Section 408(2). That individual may be assessed zero(0), one(1), etc…
Smythe: I think that addresses the chair’s concerns.
McManus: Forgetting to put one receipt in there is a petty violation. But I think candidates should be more aware.
Smythe: I like this bill, I’m happy with what this is doing.
Lopez: Line 10: ASUCD Senate amends 412©…is this supposed to be spaced out? Also, first, you don’t turn in your expenditure forms, then
Burke: The actual bylaw has a colon, let’s eliminate it.
Kappes: If you don’t turn in just one receipt. I didn’t have all of my receipts when I ran, it’s at the discretion of the chair. What we could is make it a sliding scale…nevermind, it was mentioned.
Renslo: Surprising indifferent on this bill.
Herskovitz: Spencer doesn’t share the same worries as I do, but it’s easy to make a 12:01 mistake. I think it’s easy to make mistakes like that. As Max pointed out, things get in the way. Making a sliding scale is important, and I don’t want commission to forget that.
Lara: It says by 12:00 PM the following day. Does it specify it have to be a local time. Could you say it’s 12:00 in Hawaii? I just wanted to see if that loophole is open.
Miles: I would just like to point that a candidate can’t be their own campaign treasurer. They have to put their faith in other people. If they don’t have a person they can put their faith in, they shouldn’t expect a seat. I don’t think a scale is necessary.
Chau: EC might get sued by someone into the court.
Thomas: Yield.
Yoon: Yield.
Cano: We’re going to disqualify a candidate for something they have no control over because a candidate didn’t make the deadline.
Burke: Any violation point can be towards anyone on the executive’s team.
Kappes: Yield.
McManus: I think the 2 should stand for not turning it in. As far as receipts go, I would keep it at 1, or a sliding scale. At the very least, have a sliding scale. I am in favor of two for not turning in the form.
Burke: I’m fine with putting a sliding scale in for section 1.
McManus: That’s not how I read the language right now. Perhaps you should put up to 2 points. If you wanted the sliding scale, put up to 2 points. I’m going to make that motion.
Renslo: I object; isn’t the intent on falsifying expenditure forms?
Burke: There’s a section in the bylaws in falsifying forms.
Cano: Change is made.
McManus: In agreement as it currently stands.
Lara: Is there a cutoff for when you can turn it in late? What if I get DQ’d and I whip it out after the fact?
McManus: It’s still late.
Chau: When it comes down to election codes, I spent nine hours on the codes over winter break…what you want to do is you want to make the person follow the codes and not leave it up to interpretation. If the chair is biased towards a slate, leaving it up to the chair is questionable.
Renslo: We don’t live in a perfect world?
ROLL CALL VOTE: 7-1-1: Pass.
ASUCD Senate Bill #64(Cano)
Author’s Comments: I’m renewing SHAWC. I’m amending the bill to fix a couple things that became problematic.
Renslo: Interviews should not be capitalized.
Lopez: Student Health and Wellness Center supposed to be capitalized on Line 26.
Public Discussion:
Herskovitz: Thanks for doing this, Serg.
Smythe: One year term (1)?
Cano: We don’t have to.
Smythe: This is pretty interesting. I like health, I like wellness, I like students, but I don’t like committees. I love commissions.
McManus: Line 59, week should be capitalized. What has SHAWC done this year?
Cano: They just confirmed members to the committee.
McManus: To get people and confirmed them?
Cano: They recently confirmed their last batch.
Thomas: So do you want this to eventually be a commission?
Cano: Yes. Student health is a problem on campus.
Thomas: If that is your ultimate intention, I think the bill would be stronger if there are long-range intentions. It makes it more exciting to me that this is not just for the sake of it, that there is an end goal and it is valuable. I would recommend the author to consider an end goal. We don’t want to make this a spending bill, but maybe consider staff development.
Waaland: I was curious as to why Safeboats stricken?
Cano: ASUCD’s relationship with Safeboats is interesting. First it was EAC, then OA, then we included it in SHAWC. It’s something that I didn’t think SHAWC could handle right now, but it’s too unstable. Right now, the Water Safety Council, which is mostly Greeks.
Thomas: Isn’t the Water Safety Board registered through CSI, beyond the $2000 CFC national funding?
Cano: Yes.
Herskovitz: How much do we give to Safeboats?
Cano: 250 for Safeboats, 250 for informational brochures.
Commission Discussion
Renslo: We’re not making this a permanent committee, so it’s not a big deal. I motion to call this to question.
VOTE COUNT: 9-0-0
ASUCD Senate Bill #56(GASC)
Author’s comments: The purpose of this bill is to amend the bylaws. The purpose of this bill is to protect people who don’t identify with their legal names. I’m sure y’all will probably have a lot of questions about it.
Questions and Text:
McManus: Motion to move into public discussion.
Public Discussion:
McManus: I’d like to see IAC at the review board.
Marquez: The purpose of this review board is to make sure that people aren’t feeling discriminated by the names they choose to go by. The purpose of the review board in general is to make sure discrimination doesn’t happen. It’s to protect people who feel discriminated by the process.
McManus: I think IAC should be there for a similar reason as the Elections Committee Chair.
Smythe: I did co-author this, I felt this was an issue that hasn’t been addressed. I also think the IAC chair should be there. I motion to include him.
Truong: While the IAC Chair is very informative, it goes against the purpose of the review board, which is to protect against discrimination. This creates a bylaw stalemate.
Smythe: What are you thinking, Jefferson?
Chau: If anyone feels discriminated, they have the right to file a suit with the ASUCD Court which I think is more suited to handle these situations.
Smythe: I’m going to motion to make that amendment. They are more qualified to handle this.
Herskovitz: I don’t see the purpose of us being there. This is to protect discrimination, it’s just adding more people to a confidential joint review board.
ROLL CALL VOTE(MOTION): 3-3-3
Marquez: The purpose of this bill is to protect people who are discriminated by the system. The purpose of the review board is to ensure people aren’t being discriminated by the Elections Committee. I know IAC knows about bylaws. I feel comfortable with ECAC, GASC, and Elections Committee. I’m afraid of having four people because imagine a tie. The Elections Committee already knows the bylaws. Having EC there is enough. There are already 3 people deciding if your name is legitimate.
Renslo: The problem with the last bill is that there’s zero discretion. In the case that it happens in the election, it doesn’t matter who you put on campus. I feel as though ECAC and GASC are biased. IAC is unbiased. I feel as though this has a non-biased approach if IAC is on it.
Marquez: Who else knows about discrimination? ECAC and GASC are knowledge
Renslo: People change their names for a lot of reasons, not just gender or ethnic reasons. The IAC chairperson is neutral, I was at first okay with replacing one of the chairpeople, but now I’m okay with adding this. I would not feel comfortable passing as is. I would not pigeonhole name changing as an ethnic or gender issue.
Hackney: I was curious what the challenge process is.
Garg: The committee chair deems that the name is unacceptable. If the decision is made, then the decision goes to a joint review board. It’s a simple majority. There should be no need for other people to decide validity of a name.
Hackney: What if someone went under the name of another student?
Marquez: The EC would decide if the name is legitimate.
Rivilis: You could track down the original name of the person through their ID.
Marquez: Right, you put that in under their registered name. The Elections Committee if they think that’s acceptable or not. The purpose of this process is to make sure students aren’t being discriminated.
Hackney: This could be a sensitive process, I just don’t understand the metric used by the review board.
Marquez: That’s going to depend on the people present at the time.
Rivilis: This goes a little beyond bylaws. I don’t see the point of having IAC on there. If EC objects, and ECAC and GASC could be biased.
Marquez: The purpose of this is to prevent discrimination. If there’s political bias, there’s already bias.
Rivilis: Okay, just wanted to ensure that political bias was taken into account.
Marquez: Bylaw 417 could be looked over as well.
Herskovitz: Line 31: Can we remove names from the ballot?
Cano: Sure.
Herskovitz: What were your thoughts on adding the IAC Chair and a Senator voted on?
Marquez: I wouldn’t be comfortable with that. The purpose of this is for people not to be discriminated to vote. If there’s 5 people, only 2 of them work around people with gender identity. I know people could run on weird names, but that’s not as important as people running on their chosen name.
Herskovitz: My concern is that people can choose certain names. My thought process is if you have a Senator who knew of those kind of issues, it would alleviate certain issues.
McManus: I don’t see why ECAC and GASC are incapable of seeing that type of thing. If they’re running under a name that’s unacceptable like Spencer “Don’t Raise Student Fees” McManus, the committee can see it. Let me make some questions in text amendments.
Cano: I don’t feel comfortable with the chairs being able to designate anyone. We don’t want a lot of people to find out what happened during the closed session. This is a big responsibility.
Marquez: Maybe if we can change the language somehow so that it’s more reflective of the concern and it’s as quick as possible.
Cano: This came up a year ago with the Entertainment Council large show fund thing. The EC Chair may disagree. I’m not completely sold on why the IAC Chair shouldn’t be there. The IAC Chair is more neutral. You’re going to have weird names come up like Joey Chen even though his real name is Kevin Chen. You get situations where it’s not gender and ethnic identities.
Garg: Instead of the EC Chair, we’d be friendly to having the IAC Chair look over it.
Thomas: On the times schedule EC had last quarter, they had signatures due by Tuesday and the final list posted on Friday, but the final list was not posted until Monday. You have to assume people respond to messages or emails, I’d more open to having designees as a possibility.
Cano: That’s a separate issue. Part of that had to do with SGAO. I’ll work on language.
Smythe: Did we ever make the changes to the coauthor line?
McManus: Yes.
Smythe: Like I said, I am less concerned with having the IAC Chair on there. I might want to see IAC instead of EC…
Thomas: Real quick, but neutrality is stupid and the chairs aren’t biased. If you’re not going to let IAC be on it, have it be on there as an ex officio. I don’t think the EC Chair would always vote no. I don’t imagine this committee voting anything but unanimously. I do not think that is exclusive to ECAC and GASC that they know about discrimination.