And we're so humble, too

You're welcome. In fact, were it not for our posts on this subject, CABNR would probably still have its single seat for another two decades. I might as well go ahead and state the obvious.

VLEG: Where the Nevada Sagebrush turns to for ASUN News.
VLEG: The ASUN Instruction Manual.

Judicial Council rebukes President, Senate

In a rare use of its constitutional power, the ASUN Judicial Council Wednesday unanimously ordered the Election Commission to implement a new apportionment scheme for Senate seats. In an unsigned order (meaning no single justice claims authorship), the Council found that both ASUN President Eli Reilly and the 22-member Senate failed to carry out their constitutional and legal responsibilities to apportion the seats in the Senate for the next two sessions.

According to population figures, the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology, and Natural Resources is entitled to a second seat, at the expense of one seat in the Division of Health Sciences. This shift is due to increased enrollment in CABNR degrees, primarily as a result of realignment of degree programs in the past year.

The ASUN Constitution requires the Senate to reapportion its seats every two years based on the number of students in each college and school. In 2008, the Senate passed a law delegating this function to the President, requiring him to transmit to the Senate by the first week of December every two years a statement showing the population in and the number of seats to which each college and school is entitled.

The Council found President Reilly failed to carry out his duty, noting that he does not dispute he failed to do his duty--indeed he readily admitted to the Council in writing of such failure. Further, since the deadline the Senate set has lapsed, the Council found that the Senate failed to accomplish its constitutional duty as well.

The Council's order indicates that it became independently aware of this situation. VLEG was the first to report on this issue. Neither the Senate nor President Reilly have commented on their failures.

The order directs the Election Commission to publish the new seat distribution in the Nevada Sagebrush and in election packets immediately. As of today, the numbers on the ASUN election web page are correct, but there is no indication it is because of the Council's action. Indeed, there is no record of the order on the ASUN Web site. The order was obtained only after VLEG requested the order directly from the Council.

There is no record of the Council ever exercising this power before Wednesday. This power existed under the previous ASUN Constitution, which voters revised in 2007.

Since filing for election to the Senate closes next week, the Judicial Council's order should have no effect on the election. Experts believe that the Council decided to act now rather than after the election so as to not prejudice any candidate's chances for election.

In Re Reapportionment Order 1-20-2010

BREAKING: Judicial Council to reapportion Senate

In an incredibly rare exercise of its constitutional power, the ASUN Judicial Council will issue an order to reapportion the Senate, due to the failure of both the ASUN President and Senate to satisfy their constitutional duties, sources close to the Council said this evening. We'll have the order once it's made available to us. We were the first to discuss this issue here.

UPDATE 1/21/2010: The ASUN Website appears to be offline, and we have not yet received a copy of the order. If this experience is any indication, I suppose I shouldn't expect to see the order for seven months or so.

Election season kicks off...with two fails?

The annual ASUN election cycle is a story of one debacle after another. In the past several years, elections have been mired in procedural and substantive errors, including questionable ballot counting practices, wholesale negligence with respect to following election rules, and officers who fail to perform their duties, but I have a feeling that this year will take the cake.

Already we have reported about two failed attempts of the Election Commission to meet this year, under the inspired leadership of a failed vice presidential candidate and former senator who was censured for Open Meeting Law violations, Jeremiah Todd. [UPDATE: A scheduled third meeting apparently happened, but a fourth meeting won't since the agenda never made it online. So the Commission has successfully held only 25 percent if its scheduled meetings this year.] Already we have reported on ASUN President Eli Reilly's failure to follow the law on Senate apportionment. Tonight we have proof.

This facebook page has surfaced stating the number of seats each college is entitled in the next Senate session. [UPDATE 1/20/2010: A more official source, the ASUN web site, contains the same info.] Notice anything wrong? CABNR gets screwed out of its new seat. According to the fall 2009 undergraduate headcount figures, CABNR is entitled to a second seat at the expense of one of the Division of Health Sciences seat (see our analysis here).

Unfortunately, since President Reilly never bothered to run the numbers and transmit them to the Senate, we're operating under an erroneous apportionment scheme. It's pretty sad considering we did all the hard work (30 minutes worth, tops) and even gave an example of what an appropriate statement looks like in our post here. Practically all that was required was to fill in the blanks.

Perhaps the Judicial Council will exercise its constitutional power under Article IV, section 2(d) to take over the apportionment process. [UPDATE 1/19/2010: We have received credible information that the Judicial Council is in fact examining whether to exercise its constitutional power and duty in this matter.]

Candidate packet misreports the law
The election packet misreports the Election Code. It does not include the amendments that were made to the code in the 76th Session that were scheduled to take effect in this election. Don't forget that the legal status of those amendments, among most everything else that came out of the 76th Session, was seriously in question, but was never resolved. (Hint hint to some enterprising candidate. Filed documents available here. Second hint: the issues in the cases are still viable.)

If anything, since record keeping is so abysmally poor from the 76th Session forward, good luck trying to determine what is law and what is not. Heck, even the government won't publish an accurate, up-to-date compilation of the Election Code (that link is now two elections old and no active links point to it--it took a Google search to unearth it).

And don't even get me started on the constitutional amendment that the voters ratified but still hasn't been included in the document.

Any bets on whether the Sagebrush has picked up on any of this. Or maybe they've made it policy to ignore ASUN entirely.

So if the goal is to out-do (in a bad way) past elections, this election is off to a commendable start.

Peace and love.

Apportion what?

The ASUN Constitution, in article I, section 1(b), requires the Senate to apportion its seats every two years according to number of students in each college or school. The 75th Senate enacted a law to largely remove itself from the apportionment process. ASUN Public Law 75-28. That law provides that the ASUN President is to transmit a statement of the apportionment and of the Senate for the next two years. This is to be done by the first day of December or one week thereafter. To my knowledge, this has not been done. (For an example of what such a statement looks like at the federal level, see this. By the way, ASUN's apportionment law is modeled after the federal House of Representatives apportionment law.)

Some senators, at a recent Government Operations Committee meeting, while discussing Sen. Sean Hostmeyer's efforts to create revised statutes for ASUN, expressed concern over the President having control of apportionment. (Surprisingly, it sounded like it was the first time they had read that provision, given their tone, but that's another story.) That's a farce, because the ASUN President really doesn't have control over anything. The numbers are the numbers, and the equal proportion method dictates how many seats each college gets.

Under my quick count, using the fall headcount numbers (my math here), CABNR will get its long-awaited second seat at the expense of a Health Sciences seat. One little note that could use some senatorial attention is how, if at all, to count the 160 interdisciplinary students, University Studies Abroad Consortium students and bachelor of science neuroscience students. Typically, they are lumped in with Liberal Arts, since all undeclared majors are counted there. Where they get counted shouldn't matter, as they probably wouldn't get counted in a college where 160 could change apportionment.

Another thing that should be looked into is the basis for the headcount numbers. In the 75th Session, the University's method of counting as the basis for ASUN's apportionment caused some controversy. See section 5 of the ASUN law and this report, particularly my dissenting view. Basically, the University's system was claimed to be incapable of counting a single student more than once, as in the case of multiple majors or degrees. This could substantially throw off the apportionment, as is demonstrated in my dissent when using student credit hours as the basis of the apportionment. Just wanted to share my knowledge.