Thursday, March 26, 2009
Gracie Strikes Back
Gracie Geremia, the Senate's walking bag of excuses, has posted something of interest to me on the Sagebrush site this afternoon. I wanted to make a few notes on her latest rant.
First of all, I have generally held Ms. Geremia in relatively high esteem. As opposed to most members of the Senate, she has made an attempt to reach out to other people and has been receptive to the opinions of others. However, my stock of good will for her has been eroded by her erratic, wild-eyed posts on the SB and various blogs of late.
Lupus (Sean McDonald),I wouldn't get too comfortable assuming that only one person uses that identity to criticize ASUN. That's just an aside on a hasty assumption.
I agree with Kyle entirely.Entirely? Kyle's post amounted to: don't criticize us for trying, even if we fail. Sorry, but that attitude only gets you as far as 12th grade. You can feel personal satisfaction in trying, even if your goals are not achieved, but that doesn't make up for the people you let down, including those whom you represent. Mistakes and failures are absolutely a part of the learning and growth experience; however, the mistakes of the 76th Senate are legion. It is not hyperbole to say that both the number and scope of the errors have grossly outweighed any positive efforts.
Just because he was censured, doesn’t mean that he hasn’t done anything as a senator or learned from his experiences.I am annoyed by this excuse, and not only because I've heard it countless times from this group. The Senate offers a learning experience, but you should not feel entitled to use student fees to 'enhance' your learning experience. You are entrusted with a large budget and important responsibilities, not a 1,500,000 educational toy. Serving as a senator is not a workshop. Please get that straight.
He sponsored the bar and grille resloution, has been vocal in the student union advisory board, and was the first to take initiative to meet with the dean regarding budget cuts.1) BFD. 2) BFD. 3) Took initiative? You must jest. Your list of accomplishments are not any more impressive than my morning routine of showering, brushing my teeth, and dressing myself. Did Kyle diligently ensure the ASUN Senate was following its own laws? Did you?
Just because a senator isn’t spotlighted or receiving constant recognition, ir doesn’t mean that they’re on not valuable to the student body.A vapid platitude. Moving on.
Some individuals, including yourself, did reach out to senate. I took the facts (your training on budget and finance) and threw your two-cent opinions out the window, because, like I said earlier, I respresent my constituents, not graduates with ASUN agendas that last their entire life.It's always illuminating to watch an elected official take out her claws and scratch, scratch, scratch away on the public. This sentence is one more piece of evidence proving that you, Gracie, lack the maturity and poise to represent the Senate as its Speaker. This is just my "two-cent opinion", although maybe it's worth slightly more since ASUN continues to extract fees from me on a recurring basis.
Your upset, because (1) We decided to do a session-to-session training instead of hiring the “expert” (you). I, as well as a big chunk of the senate has lost respect for you. Remember the meeting where you graced us with your presence, only to try and manipulate the rules in order to get your desired outcome? I do."As the Speaker of the Senate, let me just say. . . " I think you're trying on the mantle a bit early, Senator, and I don't think your shoulders are wide enough to fit it.
I will agree with you that Senate, including myself (ecspecially myself), has made A LOT of mistakes this year. But, despite all the mistakes that we have made, there have been accomplishments, as well. Every senator has contributed in there own way and I can assure you that nobody had personal vendettas or malicious intent when rules and laws were broken and that’s far more than you can say.There are things happening on two levels here. Let me break them out.
Level 1: By accepting responsibility for the Senate's numerous failures this year (as indicated by your use of what may very well be the word 'especially'), you either think you have more power and/or responsibilities than your peers, or else you want others to think that in the run-up to the Speaker's race. Gracie, in my mind you have only made two categories of errors this term. The first is that you failed to dutifully ensure the legal operation of the Senate, a duty which you share equally with your peers, and the second is your inability to exercise self control under duress. Both clearly disqualify you from being Speaker, but the first failure is also the most regrettable. Hopefully you will feel motivated to turn over a new leaf in the 77th session.
Level 2: Your intent when you break the law is irrelevant. Drunk drivers don't intend to kill people; lazy contractors don't mean to cripple people, and bad ASUN politicians don't intend to cause problems. Your intent does not spare you [or us!] from your mistakes, and you have been part of a body which has, in my opinion, broken many laws. I would almost prefer you have malicious intent, because that would mean that, in the very least, you were paying attention to what you were doing instead of wandering around with your head in the clouds. It would mean that you had some kind of intent beyond avoiding criticism and polishing your résumé.
I’ve learned sooo much this year and wouldn’t take a thing back.You sound exactly like George W. Bush. He was a president unable to admit his mistakes. No matter how badly he screwed up, he "wouldn't take a thing back". You're saying that if you had it all to do over, you'd screw up the same way. This is certainly not encouraging to those who are hoping for a better Senate performance in the coming year.
I’ve learned from all my experiences, as the rest of the senate has, as well. I agree with you, Senator Anderson doesn’t deserve all this BS that is coming from the confusion.You were in a special position to prevent that from happening. If you had bothered to prepare for the meeting by reviewing the rules for appointments, you would have been able to raise a point of order and remind the Speaker she was in a tie-breaking position. But you do not know the Senate's rules, it's laws, or the parliamentary procedures which are used to run its meetings. Yet another reason you are not qualified to be Speaker.
Lupus, when are you going to grow up and learn that student government is not life. When are you going to be able to accept people for who they are and realize that damn…we are humans and we do make mistakes. NOBODY means any harm.Attack, then vapid platitudes. A pity; more a waste of your time to write than for us to read.
Wishing you happiness and success in life beyond ASUN,Insincere, vapid, petty, unable to take criticism, unable to take your job seriously, unable to fairly represent your constituency, unable to keep ASUN from becoming a laughingstock, unable to take honest stock of who you are and what you've accomplished. Yet, you'll be training folks this weekend on how to be a leader, just like you. Oh dear.
Gracie
I know this is a strongly worded response, Gracie, but I am becoming frustrated with your pattern of being smart, responsive, and engaged when the going is easy and retreating to a position of passive-aggressive cattiness when you are criticized. The Senate needs a strong and steady leader to resolve the problems created by the 76th Session, and I don't believe that is you.
-Corinna
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“Breaking the law” seems to be a primary concern of the members of Vis Lupi. However, one discussion that I would like to see take place is at what point it becomes acceptable to “break the law.” To look at this in a more objective light, let’s substitute “breaking the law” with “civil disobedience.” If the people of a governed body have the responsibility to violate laws, do the elected officials representing the people have this responsibility as well?
ReplyDeleteThough I think it would be farfetched to say that there is so much social injustice on this campus that the senators of this university were driven by a sense of morality to disobey the laws set forth by the governing body they represent, I also believe that there are situations that fall somewhere in between “breaking the law” and “civil disobedience”.
The preamble of our constitution reads: “WE, THE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO, in order to form a more perfect association, advance our interests, set forth our duties, and provide for meaningful participation in the governance of our University, do hereby establish the Constitution for the Associated Students.” Why was this entity the ASUN created? It was created to advance the interests of the undergraduate students of the University of Nevada—all other responsibilities, in my opinion, are subsidiary.
Each law, hopefully, was created for a specific purpose and that purpose is to ensure that the ASUN continues to serve the overall student body. However, the application of these laws could, based on their context, fail to fulfill the overall purpose of ASUN. In this situation, I believe it is an acceptable course of action to ignore these laws.
For instance, in the case of jury nullification, a jury decides to acquit an individual despite evidence against them based on the application of the law in that particular instance. This, however, is once again the governed exercising their right to ignore laws set forth by their governing body. I guess my two-fold question to anyone reading this can be summed up as “Is the right of the people to ignore laws set forth by their government extended to members of the governing body? If so, when is the application of this right acceptable?”
I’m interested to see both sides of this argument.
Patrick Delaplain
The idea of civil disobedience is totally out of place here. The people who are supposedly breaking the (ASUN) law are those who get to make it.
ReplyDeleteInstead of saying, shit this is inconvenient, I'm not going to do it, how about the legislators (i.e., student senators) make some changes?
Patrick,
ReplyDeleteIt should also be pointed out that allegations have recently come forward that ASUN is violating Regents policy and Nevada law. Even with a higher law involved, I do not believe civil disobedience is the issue. To me, being civilly disobedient implies having some sort of specific knowledge about the law and being against it for specific reasons.
In the ASUN context, it's more basic than that: most haven't even bothered to read the laws involved, much less understand them. How can you form a reasonable opinion about the necessity for a law if you haven't even bothered to read it and understand it?
I think it would be farfetched to say that there is so much social injustice on this campus that the senators of this university were driven by a sense of morality to disobey the laws set forth by the governing body they represent
I agree. I think they were driven by laziness. Compounded with not getting the advice they need, and you have the mess that they are in. Of course all they are outwardly demonstrating is, charitably, temper tantrums. They can complain and shirk their duties all without consequence.
I should also point out that jury nullification is against the law. Lawyers who argue it get into trouble. Jurors who do not do justice according to the law, as the judge gives it to them, are not doing justice as they were sworn to do. If you do not like the law, you can be civilly disobedient, but you should also expect to suffer the consequences of doing so, as MLK did. If you don't like the law, get the legislature to change it.
W.J. Bryan,
To take an extreme view, if the senators were to find it all inconvenient, would they be justified in striking all the statutory law? Just do away with all of it. The student senators are not thinking about it in the right way, because they've hardly been exposed to the legal system. The learning opportunity that is ASUN is entirely lost on them; nobody is teaching them.
I wish I would have been able to come up with an example besides civil disobedience. I was not trying to imply that what the senators were doing could any way be considered civil disobedience. I was simply giving an example of when it is acceptable to ignore the law for a greater good.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Bryan, laws that no longer serve the students of this university should be changed. However, the application of laws may be beneficial in one situation and not in another, which brings the question as to whether or not these differing applications of the law can be effectively legislated.
Obviously, as Lupus has pointed out, simple ignorance of regulations could not be qualified as working towards the greater good. However, my question remains unanswered...is there a situation where it would be acceptable for the elected officials of the Associated Students to ignore laws?
As a general proposition, no, it is never acceptable to ignore laws; however, there are exceptions to that rule.
ReplyDeleteI am going to give a specific example to illustrate one situation where ignoring the law might be desirable and permissible, but first I need to make a distinction. Laws and rules are different. Laws are generally more permanent than rules. In this example, I say rules to mean the Senate's rules adopted under its rule-making authority provided in Art. II, sec. 2(c) of the ASUN Constitution ("The Senate may determine the rules of its proceedings..."). The Senate adopts its rules by resolution (legislation not requiring the consideration of the President to become effective). Since the Senate has the exclusive power to determine its rules, the President’s consideration is not necessary (cf. the process for legislation in Art. II, sec. 4).
However, there may be reason to adopt what amounts to Senate rules in statutory law—laws can contain rules, but rules cannot contain laws. One example of that is ASUN Public Law 75-49, which governs the process for the convening of each session of the Senate. A Senate session (a one-year period distinct from another by virtue of an intervening election of Senators) is separate from another. What one session does with respect to itself (typically) cannot bind another. Hence, the rules that one Senate adopts by resolution are not effective in the next session unless that session gives them effect. Thus, the 76th Session’s rules will have no binding effect on the 77th Session unless the 77th Session adopts those rules as its own.
Well, that presents a problem with respect to convening a new session: there is no formally adopted rule set by which to operate in an orderly fashion. This is why adopting rules in statutory law is desirable: laws have permanent effect. The originally enacted version of ASUN Pub. L. 75-49 states, in sections 5 and 6, that any person who is nominated is eligible to the office of the Speaker, including non-senators (provided the constitutional qualifications for holding office are met). The only thing the Constitution says on the matter is that “The Senate shall choose its Speaker and other officers” (Art. II, sec. 1(e)). There is no explicit requirement that the Speaker be a senator.
This Senate amended the law (that is actually in doubt, but a longer story for another time—for purposes of this argument, I’ll assume it is properly enacted) to allow only “newly elected senators” to be elected as Speaker. I would argue that these provisions governing only the Senate’s business are essentially an exercise of the Senate’s rule-making authority under the Constitution. As such, it could disregard the rule at any time, even though it is in law. (In the federal Congress, exercising the rule-making authority by statute is explicitly called out as such, to avoid ambiguity.)
So, if the 77th Senate felt that the provision violated its constitutional power to determine the rules of its proceedings and to choose its Speaker, it could ignore the law. But here, that is the case only because of the reasons laid out above. If instead the law at issue was how an executive branch agency, say the Department of Clubs and Organizations, was to seat a board, that department could not ignore the law because it is without the power to do so. The executive branch has a duty to enforce and carry out the laws as written (Art II, sec. 2(g): “The President shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”).
Another situation where a law might be justifiably ignored is where two laws contradict one another. Figuring out which law to ignore would be a fact intensive process and would require a great deal of judgment. Which law was most recently enacted, did the Legislature intend to supersede the prior law, which law, if carried out, is most reasonable in the context, etc.
To me, the reason the Senate has rules is to create regularity, predictability, and order. With one constant rule set, everybody can play the same game. Imagine what it would be like playing chess if the two players each had different rules, or different ideas of what the rules are. It would be chaos. Same thing with ASUN, only scaled up quite a bit.
The same thing is true with the law that ASUN enacts. Most law enacted at the state level, when you exclude criminal law, is the legislative branch telling the other two branches what to do and how it may be done. ASUN does not have the police powers that the state does, so it cannot proscribe conduct on an individual level. All it can do is regulate the conduct of its officials and reach individual student conduct when those students interface with ASUN.
As with any general proposition, there are exceptions. Generally speaking, the law is to be followed. We wouldn’t enact laws if they were intended to be ignored. But, as has been demonstrated, there are specific circumstances where it may be desirable and permissible to ignore the law.
How's that, Patrick?