The first senate meeting of spring quarter convened in the senate chambers on Wednesday, April 5 at 6:15 p.m.
Executive Vice President Wen-Yu Chou announced at the beginning of the meeting that Danielle Flores will be replacing now-graduated former CHASS Senator Connie Fan. Also, it was announced that CHASS Senator Ariel Chen’s voting rights had been revoked after receiving two unexcused absences for senate meetings, in which attendance is mandatory for all senators.
During ex-officio reports, Justice Casey Thielhart provided a brief summary of S17-JR-01 entitled, “A Majority Opinion Regarding President Karim’s Executive Order.” The executive order, in reference, was issued by President Shafi Karim on Monday, April 3, and sought to postpone the 2017 ASUCR elections by two weeks to begin during week three. The judicial ruling declared Karim’s executive order as unconstitutional under grounds of insufficient reasoning after undergoing a critical analysis by the judicial council, and also issued a strike to Karim for issuing the executive order.
Elections Director Marcy Kuo opted to move ASUCR elections 2017 director debates from Thursday, April 6 to Wednesday, April 5, and to move presidential debates from Thursday, April 13 to Wednesday, April 12, to take place alongside executive cabinet debates. KUCR provides the sound system used for the debates and are unable to be present on both Thursday, April 6 and Thursday, April 13. The changes were met with a vote of 5-0-4.
After being voted on and passed during the senate meeting held on Wednesday, March 15, both senate bills W17-035 and W17-039 were rescinded after it was determined that they had passed the bills without the minimum number of senators required to be present. The motion to rescind the bills passed unanimously.
Highlights:
-The Highlander Revitalization Referendum, which, if passed, would increase the quarterly Highlander fee from $2 to $4, was approved to be added onto the 2017 elections ballot.
