The Student Senate voted unanimously to correct a misspelling of the word ‘Committee’ in their bylaws on Sunday.
The change was part of a package of bylaw revisions brought to the body by Class of ’02 Senator Chris Gill. Along with the spelling correction, the revisions included changes to the policies of the Senate and to its committee structure.
The package was eventually broken into separate items for individual consideration.
Working through the revisions one item at a time, the Senate declined to make motions on a two-committee requirement for senators, rejected a motion to change its budgeting policy to require the Senate, rather than the GM, to approve the budget drafted by its treasurer, and passed a motion that requires all official business conducted in a closed meeting to be made public when the meeting is opened.
The last point discussed was a change that would more strictly require the Senate’s meetings to be public. The change would require time, location, and agenda information to be made public five days in advance "via a medium both accessible and known by the entire Union membership."
"Public meetings should in fact be public," Gill said. "This requires it."
Concerns about this change revolved primarily around the vagueness of its wording. Gill said his intent was to prevent the announcement of meetings from being "an index card taped in the basement somewhere."
However, the wording of the requirement could be interpreted to invalidate a Senate meeting if the preliminary information was not made sufficiently public.
Before a motion on this change was made, the Senate voted to postpone further discussion of the revisions until Wednesday.
One of the strongest opponents to the revisions, Class of ’03 Senator Chris Mather, said that he didn’t disagree with Gill’s changes specifically.
"What I do disagree with is changing the bylaws on a whim," Mather said.
Earlier in the meeting, the Senate confirmed the appointments of Ivan Johnson as the new chair of the GM Week Committee, and Mary Ortolano, Zachery Ament, and Mark Anderson to seats on the Rensselaer Union Executive Board.
The Senate will consider further appointments to the E-Board at a meeting on Wednesday. Grand Marshal Gil Valadez said he will be bringing some of his appointments to that meeting as well.
