Vis Lupi Est Grex

Is Our Senators Learning: When Two Bills Do the Same Thing

In this edition of Is Our Senators Learning, we take a look at the legislation on today's Senate agenda. The theme of our post will be apparent once you reach our brief review of the last bill.

Senate Bill 77-1
This bill changes the structure of the Department of Programming (aka Flipside Productions) by eliminating the ability of Programmers to appoint Assistant Programmers. The bill disrupts the hierarchy in the Department. The committee report indicates that they want to create a step below the director but above programmers.

The bill creates two positions directly under the Director of Programming to take on a variety of duties, of which were somewhat small duties to be assigned specifically to one programmer. This bil would allow for the Director of Programming to eliminate an unnecessary programmer position, and the elimination of such would allow for the funding of these higher paid assistants.

Unfortunately, the bill does not do what it purports to. The programmers are already under the director. Under section 303(a) of ASUN Public Law 75-7, the Director gets to "nominate" (the term "nominate" versus "appoint" is used inconsistently in this law) programmers to assist the director. In turn, the programmers get to appoint assistant programmers, under subsection (b) of section 303.

This bill (77-1) only allows the director to appoint both programmers and assistant programmers. It sounds like the Senate really wants to have something like assistant directors below the director. This makes entirely no sense when taken together with the companion bill, S.B. 77-2, which creates the compensation for these new assistant programmers.

Senate Bill 77-2
This bill amends the Executive Compensation Schedule to add a new tier for the Assistant Programmers created by S.B. 77-1. The bill does not appear to mesh with the stated intent of the Government Operations Committee that the Director of Programming be allowed to have "higher paid assistants." In fact, these new assistants, under this bill, will be paid less than programmers.

The bill adds a Tier VI to the compensation schedule. Rather than keep the order of descending dollar figures intact, the bill adds the new tier at the end, thusly:

(4)Level IV: $3,000.00, to be disbursed in equal increments at the end of each semester.
(5) Level V: $1,000.00, to be disbursed in equal increments at the end of each semester.
(6) Level VI: $1,500.00, to be disbursed in equal increments at the end of each semester.

It would make more sense to make the new $1,500 tier Tier V and change the current Tier V to become Tier VI. A bill that does that would look something like this:

Section 2(b) of the Executive Compensation Act of 2008 (ASUN Public Law 75-48; 75 ASUN Stat. 124) is amended by striking paragraph (5) and inserting the following:
"(5) Level V: $1,500.00, to be disbursed in equal increments at the end of each semester.
"(6) Level VI: $1,000.00, to be disbursed in equal increments at the end of each semester.

You'd do essentially the same thing for adding new offices to each tier.".

Senate Bill 77-3
This bill changes existing law that requires ASUN to maintain a reserve fund of 5 percent of the fee revenues in each fiscal year. After consulting with University budget officers, it was determined that 2.5 percent is sufficient. This bill would make the President's current budget proposal for this reserve fund to be in compliance with the law. Only they will have done the steps in reverse (President takes action, Senate enacts legislation authorizing action). It usually works the other way around.

Senate Bill 77-4
This bill modifies the amount of money ASUN will contribute to a general scholarship program it created back in 2007. The bill reduces the contribution by $50,000 in this fiscal year to $100,000. It is unclear whether this bill violates contract rights. This bill might in fact be unconstitutional under the ASUN Constitution.

Senate Bill 77-5
This is perhaps one of the better written bills we've seen since the 75th Session. This bill creates a Diversity Commission chaired by the Vice President. Some specific language and technical language in the bill is not quite correct, but the bill has a clear and understandable message. The bill would be well to coordiate with current ASUN Law on the subject, such as the Diversity Week Creation Act of 2008, as amended by S.B. 76-1. (S.B. 76-1 repealed the creation of the Director of Diversity but didn't entirely clean up all references in law to that director.) We would recommend holding off on passing this bill intil some of the technical stuff is fixed.

Senator Diaz obviously has the right idea about bills.

Senate Bill 77-6
Oh, damn, looks like we may have spoken too soon about Senator Diaz. This bill creates compensation for the diversity commissioners created by S.B. 77-5. This probably isn't her fault, but this bill does not take into account S.B. 77-2, which makes almost the exact same amendments to the Executive Compensation Schedule. Under S.B. 77-6, Tier VI would be $500 for the diversity commissioners. But, under S.B. 77-2, Tier VI would be $1,500 for Assistant Programmers. Thus, we finally get to the theme of our post.

When two bills make similar amendments to the same provision of law, only one can survive. Thus, one of the bills should be amended to fix the conflict.

Other Things
The enacting clause in all of the bills still appears to be erroneous ("students" should be capitalized, as it is part of the official title of the Senate of the Associated Students). If the enacting clause is not exactly correct, the bill could be held to be invalid (See ASUN Public Law 75-39, section 2).

When referring to sections subordinate elements of other laws, parentheses are used. So when you want to refer to subsection (b) of section 2 of ASUN Public Law 75-48, you write it as "section 2(b) of ASUN Public Law 75-48. Also, "Sec.306.g.3" is not the same thing as "section 306(g)(3)." We all know what you are talking about, but the law doesn't. Think of this like a computer program: if it is not exactly right, it will not compute.

The formal cites to the laws being amended by all of the bills is off, too. The laws can be cited by their popular titles (e.g. "Executive Compensation Act of 2008") but also need to include the formal cite (ASUN Public Law 75-48; 75 ASUN Stat. 124).

On a happy note, we are glad to see that bills are finally getting numbered. Now if we can do the same for committee reports.

Some of our senators are beginning to learn. Now let's see if we can keep this heading in the right direction.